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The fraud came over the phone, before a Bloomington woman even had her coffee

Posted on May 21st, 2009 – 11:59 AM
By James Shiffer

My colleague and fellow reporter Tim Harlow offers this tale of a cell phone debt collection scam, in which she unwittingly handed over her credit card number to an impostor:

Deb Smith of Bloomington isn’t the kind of person to give away her credit card number to strange callers. But early Sunday morning before she’d even downed her coffee, the caller sounded so legitimate that she did, only to learn just hours later that she fallen prey to a scam.

It started when a man purportedly acting as a representative of T-Mobile called her college-age son Nick’s cell phone around 7:45 a.m. and threatened to cut off service if he didn’t pay his bill of $128.05 immediately. He handed the phone to his mother, who gave the man her credit card information.

“Life’s been crazy recently and I thought perhaps I forgot or didn’t pay the full amount the previous month,” Smith said. “I thought, let’s get this taken care of.”

At the moment, her son came back in the room and mentioned that the call had originated from an unknown number, and that in past cases when he was behind in his bill that T-mobile sent him a text message.

With that development, Deb told the male caller that the card information she gave was invalid, and that she’d call back when her husband got home with a valid card. The man told her “she would not have a cell phone to call back on,” but did give her a 800 number to call. She called the 800 number and it turned out to be the number for T-mobile. She paid $150 toward her bill and thought the incident was behind her.

Two hours later Smith got a call on her cell phone from the same man with the same threat. When she confronted the caller, he hung up. That’s when Smith got suspicious and wisdom kicked in.

Smith called T-Mobile, and a customer service representative told her the company doesn’t use collection agents that way. A T-Mobile spokeswoman said the company has a specific process when it contacts a customer for any reason. The representative is required to identify his or herself at a T-Mobile Customer Care representative. They then are to go through a verification process in which they request and check information that only the party being billed would have. Finally the representative would then provide the status of the account, balance and amount due. They might try to collect on the spot.

Smith called US Bank immediately to cancel her credit card, but by the time she did, somebody had charged $433.99 at a Western Union in Missouri and about $109 with a Florida company that sells prepaid cell phone plans.

Bloomington Police are investigating the incident, but Cmdr. Dave Olmstead doesn’t know how much police can do other than follow up on the locations where the card was used.

“Police agencies get these call all the time, where people try to get victims credit card numbers over the phone. Sometimes they do give it out and they shouldn’t obviously they verify who the caller was,” Olmstead said. “We get these scams occasionally. We tell people they need to verify the account holder inform before they give out anything via phone or internet.

T-Mobile was unable to say if they have had similar cases in recent weeks, nor how the caller happened to get Smith and her son’s numbers.

The fact that this all went down on a Sunday worked to Smith’s advantage. Since both transactions were pending and had not cleared the bank, Smith was able to get US Bank to cancel the transactions, and no money was lost from her account.

Attorney General Lori Swanson has these tips on how to avoid debt collection scams like this one. The bottom line is, ask for written proof instead of taking a caller’s word for it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 11:59 am and is filed under Buyer beware, Complaint sagas, Scams. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

20 Responses to “The fraud came over the phone, before a Bloomington woman even had her coffee”

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Michelle S. Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 12:20 pm
I had the opposite experience. Yesterday I got a call from Wells Fargo asking me if I had just made a $219 purchase at an Indiana Wal-Mart. When I told them I hadn’t, they immediately canceled my credit card (didn’t have to give them any information at all) and refunded the money and said they would send me a new card right away. I asked how they possibly knew that it was fraud (especially so quickly) and they said “Well, you’ve never purchased anything in Indiana before.” Kind of creepy that they knew that, but I’m very glad they did! My question is - how did someone possibly pay for something at an Indiana Wal-Mart without actually handing the cashier my credit card - since I didn’t actually lose my card!
Pat C Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
To Michelle S.
This happened to me about 10 years ago when someone purchased over $5200.00 in things from a Lowe’s in Ga.
They do not need the card to make charges if the salesperson’s are lax and not checking to ensure the person charging is the person who is on the card or they have an insider at a shop to charge to.
Best thing is to cancel card and have one reissued.
Disco Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Good lord. Why wouldn’t you check your bill FIRST?! This whole episdoe smacks of incompetence.
Jeremy H Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Sounds like a complete idiot, giving personal
information to some random caller. Sorry to say, but
you asked for the hassles. The best thing to do is call
T-Mobile yourself and then you are in charge of the
situation and know you are calling the proper number.
Sunny Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Someone stole my checkcard # and expiration date. I am not sure where or when because I have never had a problem before using it over the phone or at a store. This thief paid their Sprint phone bill awith my info. When I checked my bank account, I noticed the charge. I don’t have Sprint as a carrier. I went through the whole process of cancelling the card, alerting the police, and Sprint.
In the end…Sprint would not release the information about which customer it was, although I had the account # on my bank statement so I could not prosecute this individual. The police said that because the bank paid me back, I was “no longer a victim, the bank was now.”

So, I cross out my number on any receipt that has it when I use my card. (Some stores use private credit card companies and the machines still show the numbers on the receipt that they keep; ie. Big Top Liquor in St. Paul MN)
Jake Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 1:51 pm
To Jeremy: Of course the individual made a mistake in giving out the number. I simply make it a practice to only give out a card number when involved in contacts I initiate
However, no one ever “asks” for the hassles. The same mentality that says this sis the mentality that says a rape victim “asked” for it by the way they dressesed
Being stupid does not relieve the criminal of being accountable for their crime.
Bloomington Police are unmotivated Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 2:03 pm
‘Bloomington Police are investigating the incident, but Cmdr. Dave Olmstead doesn’t know how much police can do other than follow up on the locations where the card was used’.

I know why they are not going to be able to do more because this would actually force them to have to do something besides hang out at gas stations, and other places (instead of doing their jobs). I’m a former cop and there is a lot of things you can do.
Jerry Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 2:06 pm
The numbers used on Visa and Mastercard (i.e., your “credit card number”) is a mathematically generated number. The math was “reverse engineered” a long time ago and valid numbers are bought/sold by crooks all the time. Not all the numbers are in use, but they just keep trying until they find one that works–BINGO !!! That is why even a picture ID on the credit card won’t work–because it is cheap and easy to make a photo card with a different working number. The card has your number but their photo–and the company running the card does not keep the photo (because it is part of the card)–so photo ID is worthless. The only thing that can work is for your photo to be stored by the card issuer. Then, whenever you use your card, they show that picture to the clerk to verify it is the same person. A comparable system is used for mail-order, where the “ship to” address is required to match the “bill to” address of the credit card in order for the seller to be protected against credit card fraud.
Addie Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
I subscribe to Equifax’s CreditWatch service - last spring, I got an alert that a new credit account had been opened in my name. I knew I hadn’t opened anything recently, and discovered that somehow someone had opened a new Mastercard acct in my name on PayPal and was making EBay transactions (about $1000).

I immediately notified the credit card company and PayPal and EBay about the fradulent transactions. Whoever did this had set up the account in such a way that the bills would only have gone to an e-mail address, not my home address - so I would probably not have caught this going on for quite some time until the bills had really been racked up and not paid, doing a real number on my credit score.

I haven’t a clue how my PayPal account was compromised,
but it’s been shut down now.

So glad I had the Equifax service!
Wonder Yonder Says:
May 21st, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Folks should also be aware that check/debit cards don’t carry the same legal protections as credit cards do. Even if it has the Visa or MC logo. If you get defrauded using a check card, the bank may not return a cent.