This number showed up as HEARST INC The woman asked for me by first name. I said who is speaking? She said a Pblishing Company. And then I said which one? She hung up and I did a reverse phone look up, Thank you Spokeo!
Same number called me today, said I was entered by either my bank or credit card, she spoke really fast about the same California vacation scenario, diamond watch, free stuff etc, I could hear all the other telemarketers in the background...hah. She was really friendly and I let her ramble on because the address she had for me was incorrect so I knew not to give her my real one. I was waiting for her to ask me to buy something when she asked me which magazines I would like and I told her "I don't like magazines" and she said fine you're still a contestant and abruptly hung up. Scammer scum didn't get me!
This exact scenario happened to me today. The caller was VERY friendly. She asked to confirm my address (which she had right) and then asked only 3 other questions: my age (not for my birth date, just my age), my marital status and my job title. She had an explanation for needing this info. I kept telling her how suspicous I was of this call and she kept assuring me it was legit. This scammer was good! When she asked my marital status and I told her I was a widow, she put me at ease by saying she was also a widow and then we talked about how hard it was, etc. Thank God when she got to the part of offering some magazine subscription for $3.95 a month, I told her I wasn't interested in anything that was going to cost me money. She never asked for any credit card info. She even concluded the call by saying she would pray for me and I told her I would do the same. I said, "God bless you" and she actually said, "God loves you." I started thinking more about this call and it just didn't sit right so I googled it and found myself here. I am so glad I didn't give her any personal info. I knew it wasn't legit but she played the "widow card" and I let my guard down, but not enough. How dare she use God's name while trying to scam me!!
Same exact scenario, different number. These telemarketers are tricky. By the time she got to the money part I was thinking it all sounded pretty fishy (and was happy to finally figure out what this was all about), so I asked her if I could cancel if I decided I didn't like the magazine. She said no, canceling wasn't allowed because they had paid all of the money up front. That was when I ended the call.
I received a similar call today from a different number. I was told the company was publisher sweepstakes calling because i was the state winner and would be in the next drawing on april 30th. The lady her name was India was very polite and nice. She explained that because I pay my mastercard or visa on time the cc company put me in this sweepstakes as a way of saying thank you or rewarding me. Long story short I agreed to participate as long as I didnt have to pay anything. She gave me her number and told me to write a few things down. Which included the name of 2 magazines and $2.59. She said someone would call to verify info on a secure recorded line once we concluded the call. The lady who called back was nice as well but couldnt answer my questions stating that it was a federal line and that the rep would have to call me back. So the rep called me back to break things down again. I was okay with things because she said everything would be mailed in 5 days I decided I would pay for the magazines monthly by money order and I decided since they received my info from the cc company, I would not give any cc number over the phone. Long story short, the lady on the federal line called me back and told me that I would have to either pay for the magazines in one lump sum per year at about $85 or so and that they could not break it up monthly. I said I cant pay for a year I can pay monthly though. She ended the call by saying Congratulations, have a nice day. Im sure this was a scam but they called from 1.662.796.1847
I just got a call from them. I stopped the girl when she asked if I resided at (enter home address here) and asked her specifically who entered my name in the drawing. She couldn't say because they didn't have that information and rattled off all the major credit card companies. So then I asked her why she needed my address and she said it was so they could send me a registered letter when and if I won and they didn't want to send it to the wrong person. I told her that if they sent a registered letter to the wrong person, it'd be returned and then they would know they needed to call me. So she replied, "So you don't want to give me your address?" and I said, "No I really don't." and she asked, "Then why didn't you say that a long time ago?" and I replied "Because I was trying to find out what you guys are all about." And then after a few seconds of silence she promptly hung up on me.