This afternoon my cellular phone rang with a stranger number (407)-362-5503. When I answered the other side was a very sweet female voice. She confirmed my name and told me she got my phone number from my friend (she got my friend name right) because my friend recommended me on the VIP list. The lady then congratulated me on a very special deal with 90% discount on the cruiser. I knew it was not true, then said I was busy and asked her to call me back. But she said this is a life time opportunity and only one call per household, then I thought what the hell and asked her to go on…
Now the lady started the sales talking, telling me how wonderful the package is (including 5 days in Orando, and 4 days cruiser in Panama sea, blah, blah). With caution, I just hmm, and hmm. At the end, she asked me to guess how much the retail price would be for the package she mentioned above. To co-operate with her play, I said it would be $2000. With excited voice, she said “congratulations, today you only need to pay $269. Not per person, per stop, it is the total cost!”.
Before I even pretend to be excited too, she continued to say what kind of credit card I would like to put on to reserve this deal. Mastercard or Visa? Very funny, finally I got such phone scam happened on myself. Of course, I will not give away my credit card to you because you describe how good this deal is. So I said, I was not clear what she just said to me, and asked her whether she can e-mail me or fax me the detail.
Guess what she would proceed for her next strategy. She said she would transfer me to her manager. Haha, now we will have two actress on the line.
When she got me on hold, I immediately dialed my friend’s phone number with my another phone. I confirmed with my friend that he did not put my name on any VIP list when I muted the cellular phone. When I talked with my friend, I came up an idea to verify this scam, so I asked my friend keep online to listen too.
A few seconds later, another voice was on the another side of my cellular phone which was a female too. She came up and introduced her as the manager of this company (by the way, she said the company called island one something). And asked me how she could help me to close this deal.
Because I heard a podcast about a phone conversation with AOL and ticketmaster customer services, so I said to this “manager” that, To be courtesy, I just want to inform you that this phone conversation is being recorded…
Guess what happened next? You are right, the lady said ‘thank you for the promotion…’ and hung up. She hung up to me before even I responded anything back to her…
:-)
Anyway, just want to share with you on this one. I know you pretty much have known such scam, but just want to remind you again
- Never give away your credit card number on the phone which was not initiated by you.
- Do not jump into some too good to be true deal easily. Because it is Too Good To Be True.
- You can always ask the other side to give you name and phone number, and ask them to call you back later or you will call them back. In this way, you can have enough time to verify.
- To protect you and your family, you can tell them you are recording your phone conversation. EVEN YOU CAN NOT RECORD AT THAT TIME!!
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