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I just received my first today!

12:30 PM
I received a call from a cell phone (inferior audio quality) on my landline phone:

HIM: Hi (my first name), this is Frank. I’m in San Jose & will be heading back soon. I’m going to be stopping by.

ME: That was quick!! You just left!! Why are you back down in San Jose?

HIM: My batteries almost gone, I’ll see you soon. click

2:30 PM

HIM: Hey (my first name), I got hung up & got a late start but I hit a bad accident that’s blocking the highway.

ME: Where are you?

HIM: Almost half way between San Jose & La Paz, don’t worry, I’ll be a little late, but I’ll be there. click

4:15 PM

HIM: Hi (my first name), I’m moving again, see you soon (static, static). click

4:30 PM

HIM: Hi (my first name), I need your help, do you know Elektra? I need you to go transfer some money for me. They won’t let me go until I pay for the damage to her car. It’s brand new & I feel really bad.

ME: You said before you were held up behind a bad accident blocking the highway, you didn’t say you were involved in the accident! Are you alright? Is the other person okay? WHO won’t let you go? Are the police there? Or do you mean the person you hit won’t let you leave until you pay for the damage?

HIM: I can’t talk now, my battery’s nearly gone. I paid all the cash I had on me, but I need you to go to Elektra & transfer $4,500 to her. The state Police are here & won’t let me go until she gets the rest of the money. I’ll get the money right back to you as soon as I get there. Don’t transfer any more than $4,500. Here’s the name to wire the money to: Liliana Guadalupe Firas Orozco (long complicated spelling process ensued!). I gotta go, I can’t talk.

ME: Wait! Give me your cell number. I need to call you to let you know when the money’s been transferred.

HIM: My cell is out of battery, I’m on another phone. Just go wire the money, but don’t wire more than $4,500!

ME: Whose phone are you calling me from?

HIM: Hers, but she’s on her way to the airport. She’s here on holiday & has to leave. Just go wire the money to Elektra in San Jose & don’t wire more than $4,500. I’ll explain everything to you when I get there.

ME: How can I let you or her know when the money’s been transferred & how’s she going to get it if she’s on her way to the airport? Is she still there?

HIM: I’m on her phone, I’ll keep it. Call me back on 331-553-8017.

ME: ‘k.....but it’s going to take me 30-45 minutes to get into town, so this won’t be happening instantly! Where’s she from? Where is the 331 area code? Does she speak English?

HIM: I don’t know, somewhere in the states. She was here on holiday. No, she doesn’t speak any English at all! I have to go, just go wire the money or the State Police won’t let me go & don’t wire more than $4,500.

ME: Alright already, I heard you the first 4 or 5 times! I won’t wire more than $4,500. Talk with you soon, I’m heading to town now.


When I hung up & several inconsistencies began zipping around in my head.....

1. Frank lives in LA & he’d been down here this month & just headed back to LA within the last week & a half.

2. Frank would have referred to them as Federalies, not “State Police”.

3. She’d left for the airport, but he was talking on her cell phone? He was keeping her phone? Why would he be paying her for the damage since she's flying out & is likely driving a rental?

4. Was it really Frank’s voice in the 4 calls I’d received over the past 4 hours, or was I lulled into a false sense of security because I’d been repeatedly addressed by name & he’d said he was Frank??

5. Frank is of Cuban heritage & speaks with a moderate degree of accent. In hindsight, the caller spoke unaccented English. But I‘d been sure I’d been speaking with Frank. But then, I don't think Frank even has my landline number!

I called Frank’s LA cell & got no answer.....hmmmmm, maybe he really IS in San Jose & his cell really IS out of battery charge! Then I called his home number.....his wife answered & I said, "This might sound strange, but where is Frank?" She said he’s here (LA) & I asked her to put him on, since I’d gotten 4 extortion calls purportedly from him this afternoon!

I took the information I’d been given by the caller & went to the Centenario Police Department. They just laughed at me & told me, “He’s just a bad boy. No problema.” I told them it IS a problema because it’s extortion & illegal! They advised me that there is a very good chance that the person who called me was already incarcerated & calling from jail!!

To reinforce to me how common extortion calls are here, the Police told me they get the same calls at home.....& a young girl had been in shortly before I’d arrived & was hysterical because she’d received a call that “they” were holding her father & he wouldn’t be released without ransom!

This type of extortion call is so common here that the Police don’t even bother to take action when they have enough information to potentially arrest the person who shows up for the money!

Do I feel stupid for thinking the calls were really from my friend? YES! Am I grateful for the presence of mind to call his home to confirm his whereabouts? YES!!!!

Beware!!! These guys can be very convincing!

Oh, yeah, I never made it to Elektra today! Nor did I bother to answer the calls that came into my land line this afternoon starting at 5:30.....5:39, 5:48, 5:49, 5:55, 6:00, 6:02, 6:03, 6:08, 6:09.½, 6:09.¾, 6:13, 6:17, 6:17.½, 6:22, 6:24, 6:28 or 6:48!

Hopefully I wasted enough of their time to have distracted them from contacting a few other people!

Wow!

They had a very concerning amount of personal information about your life!!
Could they have synced your phone while you were walking on the street?
I can't imagine any other way, unless they parked in front of your house and hacked into your wifi and then into your computer.

What a mystery?!

Just shared this story with mi esposa, and she said that this also happens on FaceBook. Is that a possible source of your personal information?

Originally Posted by Islander

Just shared this story with mi esposa, and she said that this also happens on FaceBook. Is that a possible source of your personal information?

We have had 1/2 dozen calls to our land line. I discovered our address and # is listed in the telephone directory here. That is all the info they used and some story about a sobrino in the USA in trouble. They gave no name when asked and would not give the name of the sobrino so we hung up.

I always wondered how someone could get fooled by that trick. But after reading your post I can understand how that could happen. You did some quick thinking and weren't fooled.

What are some safeguards and precautions that someone could take if they ever get a strange phone call such as this?

We had one a few months ago on our Rosarito land line. Also in English. Caller claimed to be my nephew being held for ransom. It got my heart racing for a few minutes. A few phone calls to ensure my family was OK calmed me down. These people are very good at "data-mining" and just like a fake fortune teller use every tidbit of info they can muster to make their story believable.

I did share my phone extortion story with the US Consul General for Baja (who happens to be a member of this board)- who was surprised they are calling in English. I'm not entirely surprised given the number of deportees in our area and English speaking criminals in Mexican jails. Plus my non-Mexican sounding name is in the phone book and we are all on FaceBook too. Phone extortions are very common down here- but the trend towards speaking in English is new. Maybe I should always say "bueno" instead of "hello" when I answer the México line. Usually answering in English saves me from telephone surveys, political pollsters and sales calls.

This type of crime will only increase as long as some people fall pray to it and there is no Police follow up and arrests made. Just look at the 100,000's of various similar fraud schemes come out of Nigeria every year.

Islander, Frank & I discussed this at length & I've pondered this after we spoke.....I've come to the conclusion that the information could NOT have been pulled off either Frank's phone or my phone.....I don't have him in my cell & when I spoke with him, he reminded me that he doesn't even have my landline number & my landline is not listed in the phone book. So we're both totally perplexed!

I'm not on Facebook or any other social media network.....Baja forums are the extend of my reaching out to the world. As you discovered, I don't give out personal contact information to the world at large & I try to keep my identity private until & unless I establish a degree of comfort with who I'm messaging with.

'Tis perplexing.....but definitely a sobering lesson about the disconcerting lack of personal privacy in this electronic age.

bwall, beyond having an awareness of this type of extortion call, I can't really answer your question. Maybe have a pre-planned set of questions or comments.....for instance, I could have asked "Frank" if "Susan", his wife was with him. If it really was Frank, he'd have come back & automatically corrected me with his wife's real name.....or was Snooky, your dog, in the car with you; when I know that's not his dog's name.....misname any other family member, hypothetical family member or otherwise. Unfortunately, at the time of the calls, as Woooosh explained, the adrenaline kicks in & you're thoughts are primarily on how to help your friend or family member. I'm still puzzled over how I was convinced it was Frank I spoke with.....not once, but 4 times!! Possibly simply inherent human nature.....trust that people are who they portray themselves to be.....until proven otherwise.

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

Islander, Frank & I discussed this at length & I've pondered this after we spoke.....I've come to the conclusion that the information could NOT have been pulled off either Frank's phone or my phone.....I don't have him in my cell & when I spoke with him, he reminded me that he doesn't even have my landline number & my landline is not listed in the phone book. So we're both totally perplexed!

I'm not on Facebook or any other social media network.....Baja forums are the extend of my reaching out to the world. As you discovered, I don't give out personal contact information to the world at large & I try to keep my identity private until & unless I establish a degree of comfort with who I'm messaging with.

'Tis perplexing.....but definitely a sobering lesson about the disconcerting lack of personal privacy in this electronic age.

bwall, beyond having an awareness of this type of extortion call, I can't really answer your question. Maybe have a pre-planned set of questions or comments.....for instance, I could have asked "Frank" if "Susan", his wife was with him. If it really was Frank, he'd have come back & automatically corrected me with his wife's real name.....or was Snooky, your dog, in the car with you; when I know that's not his dog's name.....misname any other family member, hypothetical family member or otherwise. Unfortunately, at the time of the calls, as Woooosh explained, the adrenaline kicks in & you're thoughts are primarily on how to help your friend or family member. I'm still puzzled over how I was convinced it was Frank I spoke with.....not once, but 4 times!! Possibly simply inherent human nature.....trust that people are who they portray themselves to be.....until proven otherwise.

Even if the voice on the other end doesn't "match" you take into account the situation and think it's them sounding different because of the panic and stress of the situation. The man who processes my visa says he tricked an extortion caller by inventing a name the caller quickly adopted. My mind didn't work that quickly when the adrenaline kicked in.

longlegsinlapaz

The "Centenario Police Department" shouldn't have shrugged this off!

I know they are EXTREMLEY busy but it sounds like they are getting as comfortable as the last batch that they replaced.

I will bring this up the next time I share some Tequila with some influential people I know.

I recived a like call yesterday, there was a lot of static on the line and he called several times. The subject of the call was suposed to be a Nephew in Northern Ca. When i started asking the caller questions about my Nephew He became confused, It was like some one in a play that forgot his lines. He hung up. and has not called back.

A good warning to us all to be more guarded with our personal info on line. If your friend posted something on line about visiting his good friend *&^%& in La Paz, it really wouldn't be that hard to connect the dots, find a phone number, write a script and make the calls.

If your friend isn't on FB, or some other social media site, then it gets harder to figure out.

It would be interesting to have someone with a security background give their views on this.

As far as being fooled by the person claiming to be your friend, our brains are amazing, but lazy. They use only a few details and then "fill in the blanks" to make an image (drive a boat or plane in fog and you see all sorts of amazing things while your brain seizes on one explination after another to make sense of a series of random points of information. A white object looming out of the mist is first an iceberg, then a 100' yacht, and then flys away and becomes what it really is, a herring gull.

Just glad you figured it out!

Originally Posted by larry

This type of crime will only increase as long as some people fall pray to it and there is no Police follow up and arrests made. Just look at the 100,000's of various similar fraud schemes come out of Nigeria every year.

So I shouldn't have given my bank account number to the guy who wrote me about my multimillion dollar inheritance???

This thread brought to mind a funny website I used to follow, the owners of which are "scambaiters." They specialize in drawing scammers into their fiendish web in order to give the the scammers a taste of their own phishy medicine. Here's a page of links to letters describing many of the interactions, some of them quite hilarious. Welcome to the 419 Eater In my favorite one (not sure how to locate it now), the counterscammer eventually gets the scammer to get a tattoo and become a member of a made-up religious order in hopes of receiving missionary funding from the mother church back in England.

Just did a search, and here's the link to the above-described counter-scam: Welcome to the 419 Eater .

Originally Posted by DebMer

This thread brought to mind a funny website I used to follow, the owners of which are "scambaiters." They specialize in drawing scammers into their fiendish web in order to give the the scammers a taste of their own phishy medicine. Here's a page of links to letters describing many of the interactions, some of them quite hilarious. Welcome to the 419 Eater In my favorite one (not sure how to locate it now), the counterscammer eventually gets the scammer to get a tattoo and become a member of a made-up religious order in hopes of receiving missionary funding from the mother church back in England.

Just did a search, and here's the link to the above-described counter-scam: Welcome to the 419 Eater .

The number 419 comes from Nigeria. It is the criminal code number for fraud.

DebMer: Thanks for the link. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. There were also many posts of other ruses designed to waste the scammers' time, etc. Just hilarious.

Originally Posted by bwall

DebMer: Thanks for the link. I haven't laughed that hard in ages. There were also many posts of other ruses designed to waste the scammers' time, etc. Just hilarious.

Did you read the one where they guy got a tattoo for the cause?

oh yeh, that was great. and 'the bigger the tattoo, the larger our donation'--just classic!

And then there was the 'handwriting sample' that was needed--100 pages minimum with a bonus if you complete everything. Of course they wanted that bonus!

And Klench Mychiques the stuntman who arranged to be picked up at the Amsterdam airport but was too busy cavorting with hookers to meet with them.

Just too good.

That was great, DebMer! Thanks for the chuckle!

Originally Posted by KGryfon

That was great, DebMer! Thanks for the chuckle!

I just finished reading this one Welcome to the 419 Eater , in which the scammer has to carve a bust and send it to the scambaiter in order to receive his scholarship, but the wood bust APPARENTLY was packed and shipped with a squirrel inside, which ate a hole in the painstakingly carved bust.