The "Corporate Office" called.

[Victory Sabre]

Not really, just a scammer pretending to be from the main HQ.

How did I guess it?

The caller ID came up as California, but the HQ is nowhere near California, and these idiots have tried this before. Too bad for me, I was busy with customers, because I'd love to mess with them. I'd love to ask to talk to corp. people who haven't been involved with the company in 25 years, or so, and see what happens.

[bhskittykatt]

We had a call like that the other night. They asked our night auditor for our guest list. When asked why they couldn't look it up themselves, they said they had technical difficulties on their end. When asked for a number where he could call them back, they hung up.

[underemployeed]

Yeah, I was working 3rd shift and got a called, sadly I knew a password to get on part of the system a cashier technically isn't supposed to use but has the handy feature of being able to look up all the corporate goons, Didn't see anyone by his last name listed, so I said, "Well I would love to help you but I'm too fucking busy, so your going to have to call back when someone gives a shit or actually has the power to do what you want done, otherwise it just a powerless cashier who doesn't give a shit, you have a nice day Mr. Corporate Whatever the hell you said you were."

.....

Now we have a note on the phone saying don't do anything people call from corporate pretending to be unless we are actually having a problem and we are expecting the call. Oddly, that same night another store got hit by doing a "card test" and activating a bunch of calling cards to the tune of about $600

[bainsidhe]

I was wondering what the point of these calls were. I had no idea scamming actually worked like that. How sad.

[MoonCat]

There used to be a scam in which someone would call a company and ask to be transferred to a certain number, which was actually the main number for the company's voicemail. From there they would be able to dial "9" for an outside line and then make long distance calls on that company's dime.

That pretty much stopped when most companies got wise to it and blocked outside calls from their voicemail.

[wolfie]

At a couple truckstops, I've seen signs over the Western Union machine saying "Don't touch this machine if you're on the phone", and detailing a scam where "someone from Western Union" calls and "needs to run a test", but it's actually a crook setting up a live money transfer.

[Midorikawa]

bainsidhe: Most scammers don't think things through enough to get the information they need. The ones that do can be downright scary.

One of my personal heroes of sorts is Kevin Mitnick, the hacker who evaded the FBI for some ungodly amount of time before being caught. He's put out a rather interesting book that I'd say anyone in any customer facing job NEEDS to read, and everyone not in a customer facing job SHOULD read, called The Art of Deception. I keep the book on my desk here at work, and have more than once encountered scenarios very similar to what he outlined. Had I not read the book, I'd have fallen for the ploy. He outlines many common ploys used to social engineer information, and gives tips on how to sniff out the ones who DO think things through and get the info in seemingly innocuous pieces, instead of all at once like most dumb scammers try.

Once, I had a guy call in claiming to be from head office, knew internal lingo, knew the codes we used, and claiming to have some computer issue. He wanted me to add a commonly used testing code to an account that he claimed he was using for testing, but would have essentially given the customer a temporarily free account. Guy even had an internal "extension" he provided me as a callback number. The extension was a little known backdoor into the customer care queue that noone in my office knew about. Everything about the guy seemed normal, including the area code he was calling from. The ONLY way I was tipped off was that the extension was different than one I was used to seeing and dialed it on my second line while I was "looking into" adding the code.

Who knows where he got the internal lingo, the internal system codes, or the customer care backdoor, but likely he fooled other employees into giving information they shouldn't, and was trying to make the final call when he got me.

[emax4]

You ought to check out the follow up book as well, "The Art of Intrusion". Good stuff.

[MaseMan]

Our company has been running into a similar scam. Someone calls from the corporate office in California (which is funny when our HQ is in Minnesota) to "confirm your shipping address". Then they send you an package (like an mp3 player or something) as a "promotional item." Then they bill your location letter.

[Victory Sabre]

Our company has been running into a similar scam. Someone calls from the corporate office in California (which is funny when our HQ is in Minnesota) to "confirm your shipping address". Then they send you an package (like an mp3 player or something) as a "promotional item." Then they bill your location letter.

It sounds like it's probably the same scammers as mine. Too bad for them, there's no way their scam will work on us. Heck even Lazy Ass knows not to give them info.