My boyfriend received a phone call this morning (half asleep from taking care of our baby all night) and was told by "Stephen Smith" (had a thick accent. I think it was Indian) he got a $10,000 grant ONLY if he got a "GreenDotMoneyPak" with $200 to send to them to register for the Federal Reserve Bank and that "Stephen" would only be in the office for a few more hours, so it had to be done right away. With my boyfriend being half asleep, he told him his card information and shortly after called me once he realized his mistake in giving his Visa information so I could fix it. I called my bank right away, then went on to call "Stephen" to figure out what all he had told my boyfriend. His scam was "I do everything over the phone for you. You go to an A.T.M. to check and see your money is in there so I'll need access to your accounts. You can't tell any 3rd party about this or they will tax you on your $10,000 so you have to wait till after it's deposited to share any information. I'm from the U.S. Federal Grant Department so if any of this goes wrong on your end I get fired so you KNOW you can trust me. So when will you have the $200 for me?" I was amazed by half the stuff this man had told me. Seriously, "Stephen"?? When I told him I was calling for my boyfriend he INSTANTLY knew who I was talking about. How would he know without me giving him any names or anything when he's been "making these calls all morning" to let the "lucky people" know? Please don't fall for this, people. I had to spend half my work day making calls before they could access my account and steal my money because of a simple mistake made.
Got a call from an arab/indian type. Saying that I was being sued by the IRS. Time sensitive to reply. I called back and told him to go find a goat to hump. He hung up. I tried to call back again and the line just goes to busy. Guess the "IRS" blocked me. So Sad.
I got an email initially (with bad spelling in its main title even), then they gave me this number when I replied to it. Funny thing is, I went through this mess last fall, so it was funny to pursue this. He spouted all sorts of fancy departments and other useless but important-sounding info. When I asked him to verify my info, he couldn't. Got all flustered when I insisted, even threatened me. I laughed at him. Now he won't answer my calls.
Bonus: I emailed him back and threatened to post that number on craigslist advertising free money or something if you call this number. I haven't done it yet, because that would be mean towards the people hoping for money, but can you imagine how slammed his phone will get with a variety of unknown phone numbers, since he's decided to block mine already?! Maybe it'd cut down their attempts to pull these scams... until they drop the number and someone else gets it instead. Oops.
I got an email stating that they were going to take me to court and arrest me for a pay day loan. I don't have or do payday loans. They gave me a number to call and no one answered.
Total scam. Being in ordinary civil debt is NOT a crime and you cannot be arrested for it. Ignore and block these calls. Originate in India and Pakistan and they spoof local numbers.