[conspire] Scam du jour

[Elise Scher]

Hi Rick,
    Good for you! Yes, I get scam calls too. Just not that one yet.
    I see from my husband's practice, he is a tax accountant, that some
people get very scared when they receive correspondence from the IRS or
Franchise Tax Board.

Elise Scher

On Fri, Aug 31, 2018 at 4:39 AM Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com> wrote:

> Around 5:40pm local time, the house 'phone rings.  Ring, ring, ring,
> ring... I reach it, and glance at Caller ID.
>
> -------------------
> |MURRAY       UT  |
> |  801-590-3114   |
> -------------------
>
> Rick:  Hi there, Murray You-tee from area code eight-oh-one.  You're on.
>
>
> Now, it's important in this age of telephone usage that Caller ID has
> always been vulnerable to provision of forged (false) information, but,
> ever since VoIP has become commodity service to everyone and everyone's
> brother, it's totally unreliable and should assumed to be a lie -- with
> minor exceptions if you happen to be accepting the call at the desk of
> your regional 911 emergency service centre, because E911 lines have
> enhanced Caller ID for good and compelling reasons.  (See:
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1)  Otherwise, assume
> there's an excellent chance whatever Caller ID information the LCD
> display tells you is a barefaced lie.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caller_ID_spoofing
>
>
> Caller:  Is [name of someone I've never heard of] there?
> Rick:  There's nobody by that name at this number.
>
>
> Caller then said he was calling for me, giving the formal version of my
> name discoverable from, for example, the property tax records for my
> residence.
>
>
> Rick:  Who's calling, please?
> Caller:  [not actually answering my question]  I'm calling to follow
>        up on a grand jury summons.  You signed for it on July 11th
>        at 1105 Altschul Avenue, but failed to show up at the jury.
>        But we can straighten this out today if you come down to the
>        courthouse.
> Rick:  What courthouse is that?
> Caller: 450 Golden Gate Avenue  [this being the Federal Building in San
>        Francisco].
>
>
> At this point, I'm seeing lots of signs of scamminess, but am not sure
> what the scam is, and also there's always the residual possibility that
> this is some utterly inept law enforcement representative, and someone
> has epically screwed up at a court clerk's office.  But things that
> bother me include the fact that I vaguely recall 801, the claimed
> calling area code, being in Utah, and that we're already past the close
> of business on the West Coast, not to mention it being even an hour
> later in Utah (Mountain Daylight Time).
>
>
> Rick:  I'm sorry, who's calling, again?
> Caller:  This is the US Marshalls Office.
> Rick:  US Marshalls Office in San Francisco?
> Caller:  Yes.
> Rick:  I'm very sure that nobody signed for a grand jury summons in
>        July, and also grand jury summonses don't include signature
>        requirements, and also I'm very unimpressed that your Caller
>        ID is from a place nowhere near San Francisco.  If you're not a
>        fraud and are serious, send a letter.
>
>
> About this time, the connection dropped, not caused by me.  I went off
> to tell Deirdre about this strangeness, and the phone rings again.
> (In the meantime, I've double-checked area code 801, and, yes, Salt Lake
> City.)  Ring, ring....
>
> -------------------
> |MURRAY       UT  |
> |  801-590-3114   |
> -------------------
>
> Rick:  Well, hello again.
> Caller:  You need to come down to the courthouse [blah blah]
> Rick:  Here's what we're going to do.  You will tell me your name, for
>        starters.  I'm going to look up the correct telephone number
>        for the US Marshall Service at 450 Golden Gate Avenue.
>        I sure hope you can be reached via the front desk, because
>        that's what I'm going to call.
> Caller:  [starts to give me a telephone number]
> Rick:  No, you aren't listening.  You're going to give me your name,
>        then I'm going to call the _real_ US Marshalls Service number
>        for the SF office, and in the unlikely event of you really
>        working there, I'm going to be speaking to you _and_ to your
>        boss, and we'll go from there.
> Caller:  You listen to me, you motherfucker...
> Rick:  No, you listen to _me_, you two-bit poxy con-artist, you don't
>        get to call me on my home telephone and make bullbleep threats
>        for whatever your stupid scheme is....
>
> {click}
>
>
> It remains not completely clear what the exact scam was, but I figure
> it goes like this:  The 'hook' is him being able to recite my formal
> name and street address (which is supposed to make it seem genuine) --
> but that is not at all impressive because he probably was just working
> from property tax record, which gave him both data items plus telephone
> number.  Also, it's pretty unimpressive that the first time around, he
> asked for someone else's name before asking for me.
>
> The scam probably involved something like him telling me a huge fine was
> being assessed against me, but that I could settle everything
> immediately by going down to a local store and wiring money to
> somewhere, otherwise, oh noes!  I'd need to drive to the Federal
> Building in San Francisco, where I might be, oh noes!, arrested.
>
> So, the hook is the allegedly compelling name/number/address
> information.  The goad is the bullbleep threat.
>
> And that's the interesting bit:  Over the years, I've learned that a
> depressingly large number of people get completely terrified if they
> hear anything that seems to be a legal threat, and just immediately
> switch their brains off.
>
> Probably, some number of targets say they're heading down to the Federal
> Building, in which case they end up talking to very puzzled
> receptionists at the US Marshalls Service, who say they have no idea why
> the target is there.
>
>
> Last, you do not 'sign for' a jury summons (including a Federal grand jury
> summons).  The summons orders you to show up on a certain date, and
> includes a form you can send back to be excused (serious illness,
> extreme age, on-call physician, in the military, in law enforcement) or
> to request the appearance be rescheduled.  Otherwise, you don't send
> anything back; they just expect you to be there.  (The form will have a
> telephone number to call the day before you're due, to find out if you
> are still needed.)  If you fail to show up for a Federal grand jury,
> indeed the US Marshalls Service will be sent out (by the judge) to find
> you at your residence or place of work, and bring you back to a very
> not-pleased judge why you were a no-show.
>
> And last-last, if I _had_ gotten a Federal grand jury summons, I'd
> certainly have remembered it.
>
>
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-- 
KI6PUO
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