Recently a Bellefontaine, Ohio woman received a call that appeared to come from Apple informing her that there was a problem with her iPhone. He then gave her a case number and transferred her call to a scammer posing as a bank representative who told her that illegal content was discovered on her phone. He then transferred her call to a third scammer purportedly an employee of the Federal Trade Commission who told her that in order to resolve this serious matter she needed to get $500 in Apple gift cards and provide the numbers to the phony FTC employee which she did, thereby losing the $500.
TIPS
While calls like this seem to be emergencies and thereby trigger the part of our brain called the amygdala which is where we make quick, emotional decisions in emergency situations without logically considering the circumstances, there are a number of red flags that indicate that the entire matter was a scam. The call itself may appear to be legitimate because scammers can “spoof’ the numbers of legitimate companies such as Apple or governmental agencies, such as the FTC to manipulate your Caller ID to make the call appear to be from Apple or the FTC. However, it is important to note that Apple is not going to call you to inform you of illegal content on your phone and no legitimate company or government agency requires payments to be made by gift cards. Scammers love gift cards because they are easy to keep anonymous and impossible to trace. So anytime you are asked to pay for anything by way of a gift card, it is a scam.
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