How I Came Close to Getting Scammed
Author: 
December 8, 2008 
Know who you're dealing with before landing the first punch.
Last month, Danny Choo wrote about an elderly lady in Japan who was scammed out of ￥1,400,000 (approximately $14,350 USD) by a man who pretended to be her son. The “son” called her by phone, claiming that he was trouble and is in desperate need of cash. Sounds a scene out of the movie, “Criminal“.
Danny asks readers if they have ever been or came close to being scammed. Many others including myself had a story to share–my story that hasn’t been mentioned anywhere else, until now. This is how I came close to being scammed while at an anime convention back in March:
I almost fell for a scam back in the Spring. I spent a couple of nights for an anime convention. On the first night of the con, I got a phone call from a guy who needed credit card information to have WiFi setup in the room. He called twice; the first time, my mom answered it while I was half sleep. The guy had an Indian accent, my mom couldn’t understand what he was saying, and told him he had the wrong number.
A couple of minutes later, he called back, but this time I answered it. He asked for the last 4 digits of the credit card. With me being very sleepy, I started to look through my wallet for the information…maybe it had something to do with the hotel, but thought to myself–I don’t have a laptop (I started to bring it too, but decided not to), so why does he need this info? I told him that he had the wrong number and hung up. The following morning, I told the hotel receptionist about it, and they said they only call up the room when there’s room service and such–never asking for information like that. Good thing I didn’t bring my laptop..
This is a reminder to others who are traveling not to share your personal information with ANYONE outside the hotel staffers. If you want a WiFi hookup, it’s already included with the room that you paid for yourself. Ironically, Criminal was on HBO the following night of the call… Has anyone else been scammed before?
Have you ever been scammed before?
- Yes (60%, 3 Votes)
- No (40%, 2 Votes)
Total Voters: 5
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Tagged: 
(Fandom)
getting scammed from a friend is the worst
Check out Aoki-sama´s recent blog post: What is a Crypter
a part from a few retarded online attempts at scamming me i don’t have much problem with scammers
Now that you mention it, I just received an email yesterday from a Sarah person who said that her dad was some kind of millionaire who left her Seven Million USD and how she needed my bank account number so she could transfer the money to it (apparently, her father had many enemies and she needed to get the money out of the country). She said that if I gave her what she needed, she was going to give me 15% commission. I was like, what an interestingly elaborate lie. Spam-scam, of course. Still, very creative. It would probably fool a hapless naive non-internet savvy person, but I’ve written up articles about Internet scammers in my line of work and this one is classic.
About your experience, it’s not only credit card numbers that scammers ask for. Sometimes, something as innocent as your mother’s maiden name can be used by them to gain access to other more vital pieces of your identity.
Check out jutester´s recent blog post: Kurozuka 10: Secrets Revealed
@Jutester: I didn’t think of someone using a name to get into my private information. I was so tired when I received the call… I gave the guy an angry tone when I told him he had the wrong number… If I I hadn’t done that, he would have kept calling until he gotten what he needed.