OK, this literally happened 20 minutes ago. I am beyond livid, especially since I was a victim of serious hack a couple of years ago. I never, and I do mean NEVER pick up my landline or my cell phone (which I sometimes don't turn for days or weeks at a time because I hate being a slave to a device) if I don't recognize the number. Even though I'm on The Do Not Call Registry, world wide shit pails have upped their game (i.e. the exchange for both home and cell and the first three numbers, story for another day). Well, on my landline/CID, I see that it's CENTRAL HUDSON. I DO recognize the number, I know it's them, because it's branded into my brain box because of some issues on their end in the past i.e. being without power for 9 days during the great ice-storm in NY some years ago. So, what do I do? I pick up the phone. This guy in barely intelligible English asks me who the "owner of the account" is. Immediately suspicious I say, "Why do you want that information?" "Your account is delinquent. You haven't made a payment in two months. Please verify the owner of the account name and address." "You HAVE my address. This is a scam. I don't know how you're doing it, but FUCK YOU!" "Your electricity will be turned off in 45 minutes if I don't have this information. Please verify the owner of the account and the other information, please." "You're not understanding me. FUCK YOU!" I slammed down the phone. I was so angry, I was shaking. If you've ever been the victim of a hack, trust me, it's so traumatizing that your life is never the same. It's like being pursued by unseen forces. I wasn't identity thefted per se, just stalked and taunted into oblivion. Phone eaten, lap top raided, contacts stolen, pictures destroyed, tax information wiped, email accounts and contacts obliterated. And I'm talking gmail here. It was police matter that I should have pursued, but I'm not Jennifer Lawrence so . . . I have a strong suspicion who did it, and the only reason I will ever be able to come up with is simply because he could. But I digress. So, I call back the number on the CID to inquire and report it and it goes directly to CENTRAL HUDSON (bolding it again because it's critical to the situation). I explain in a controlled angry tone what happened. Confirmed: TOTAL SCAM. CENTRAL HUDSON'S TELEPHONE NUMBER HAS BEEN SPOOFED AND ASSHOLES ARE ROBBING THE ELDERLY BLIND. I have no fckn idea how this said asshole knew that I didn't pay my bill in two months (I didn't, because I had a credit and I'm on a budget plan). I have no fckn idea how this said asshole knew I was even a CENTRAL HUDSON customer. I'll probably be freaked out until tomorrow. Tell your Grandma and Grandpa to never give out information if anyone calls from "CENTRAL HUDSON" threatening to turn their power off. It's a legitimate number, but if someone tries to milk you or your loved ones for identifying information, watch yourselves! Please note that I also asked the guy who called me why he needed this "information" a minimum of five times. He also said "we are on your street now, ready to shut it off". What a cunt. (845) 452-2700 <=== that's where my call "generated" from or (800) 527-2714 Please pass this along to any friends or relatives who have Central Hudson. Oh, and people who prey on the elderly should be kicked in the back into a ditch. Give me a shovel. I'll gladly throw on the dirt.
Did you see the story of the guy on Long Island that convinced an elderly woman to withdraw all her $ to cover her son’s bail? He even had the balls to show up at her house and collect it. Her ring camera caught him on video and I think the cops got the $ back but it just shows how these people work. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
He didn’t know that you haven’t paid your bill. He was taking a shot at it hoping you were disorganized and would have just coughed it up. Also it’s not hard to find out what region a utility company covers. Simple scam . You should have kept him on the line and let him think he had a live one for a while before telling him to fuck off.
Yep, next to the "IRS" nonsense, that's up there. My MIL, who has never been on the internet in her entire life, got identity-thefted two weeks after she died. I went ballistic. Her death announcement/obit wasn't even in the newspaper for crying out loud (very private person) and some major fckn POS still managed to open a cc in her name. My MIL was 4'11" and 100 lbs. soaking wet. Got a delivery on our doorstep with two XXL men's sweatpants and two pairs of men's size 12 X wide shoes for one of two reasons: just to see if they could it or they were really that shitty and obese and would come to "steal" future packages when we weren't home. I called up the company that shipped it demanding to know how it happened. Guess what? The cc account was opened via phone. Me: "From where? Beyond the grave?! Close this account NOW." They even had the audacity to ask me to return it. Me: "ARE YOU ON DRUGS?! It's going into a donation bin." It was probably a security breach at The Bank of America. Don't even get me started on those fckn assholes. And may I add we are far, far from loaded. I'll link a post from another thread some time.
The point is, it was Central Hudson's DIRECT NUMBER. Central Hudson provides my electricity. Of course he was taking a shot and very possibly got lucky (it's still giving me the creeps), but the phone number was/is 100% legitimate and people are getting ripped off. Just wanted to put it out there SO PEOPLE AT RISK DON'T GET UNWITTINGLY BURNED. EDIT: I also had something else happen to me a few months ago. "This is Central Hudson. We can cut your electricity costs!" It was generated from the Central Hudson 800 #. Turns out it was Kiwi Energy trying to get me to switch over and screw me over royally after a cheap introductory period. Seeeeeeeeeeeeee yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Please note once again that the call was generated from Central Hudson's legitimate toll free number. Oh, and Central Hudson basically sucks as it is.
People like that are the scum of society. They literally do nothing but prey on the elderly trying to trick them. These people are that pathetic that they can't get a real job so they have to leech off others. My best friend's grandfather was recently scammed in a similar way. Wow, that was the exact scam too!
Awful, my grandmother almost fell for one years ago too. I think ch.2 here in NY had the original story. The guy was a fat loser, as expected. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
>: ( I swear, all I do is throw air hay makers over these things. They're scumbags. It's one thing if it's robo-calling (I have a healthy sense of paranoia because reasons), it's yet another if a live person from a legitimate business phone number is spoofing the number to scam and rob innocent people. Some cunts have no conscience on any level. I'm not even close to being a remotely decent person at times, but fukk off and die with this shit. Central Hudson told me there were NUMEROUS complaints about this - in the thousands - but nothing is essentially being done is the kicker. <=== She could technically get fired simply for telling me that, but she did say on their website there is a whole thing of how to avoid scammers. It's a security issue, no question. Remember the old days of 'Con Edison' showing up at your door? Probably not, because I am sure this is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before your life time. Con is the operative word. Pond scum would show up in uniform at your house/apt. (targeting the elderly) saying there's a power outage, we have to look at your meter, etc. Innocent person says OK, purse gets stolen, house turned upside down, threatened with guns for money, rapes, robberies. I love monkeys. I hate people. At least great apes and monkeys are honest when they look you in the face before they destroy you. They also don't type and ruin each other on the internet. Yet.
The moral of the story is that if you get a call from a utility company (cable, cell, oil, gas, etc) generated from a LEGITIMATE phone number and they attempt to pump you for information, HANG UP. I smelled it, alright. Notate the time and ask for the reps name. They will most likely hang up on you before you do. I hope that asshole who could've possibly been preying on an 80+ year old gets hit by a car, winds up in traction, and drowns in medical debt. EDIT & P.S.: I asked him for his name before I told him to get fucked. His name? Miguel. Hahaha, are you shitting me?! The guy was from the Bay of Bengal and I'm being generous here. I left out his name earlier, but FUCK YOU "Miguel", one of the most satisfying starts to 2019. Anyway, if you or your loved ones have Central Hudson, watch it. Security breach (I'm quite sure of it) and scammers on the loose.
I wonder if abyzmul has an alibi? If you recall, he used to felch wombats for Charlie Manson. True story.
This is nothing new, even in the last month we've had calls that the IRS is about to come to our door if we don't pay now, gotten emails that someone is in my computer and recorded webcam videos of us having sex and has all my financial information hostage, and even an email that a bomb was in the building and would go off if I didn't bitcoin thousands of dollars immediately. This is all an escalation of con jobs and Nigerian scams and they are getting bolder. I have no problem fending off all of these but like you say the elderly are not so lucky. My father in law got nailed last year when someone called saying they were from microsoft and his computer was hacked. They somehow convinced him to download a file to fix it that actually did hack his computer then proceeded to lock him out and demand payment to get him back up. He called me frantically from another phone and I told him to hang up now and unplug the router immediately, and I had to go over there and pull out his hard drive and use a USB enclosure to copy over all his files, format, re-install windows, and reload all his things. If he hadn't called me he either would (A) have paid out a large sum of money or (B) had these assholes from overseas delete everything on his computer and lose everything
I agree, it's almost a requirement now to not answer calls if you don't recognize the number or if it has the same first 7 digits as yours. If you do answer the phone, never give them any information about yourself and never even say the word "yes." People have recorded calls and pasted a person saying "yes" right after some crazy financial agreement and you can lose your legal right to sue in many cases. Also if somebody asks for you by name, never admit it is you, reply with, "May I ask who is calling?" If they dodge your question, hang up immediately or tell em to fuck off.
I do something similar for the scammers contacting me about Craigslist ads I have. It's the scam where they will supposedly send more money than you are asking, to cover shipping. I'll go back and forth with them and then finally agree to sell to them but tell them I need the money fast so they need to overnight the check. At least I get them to waste their time on texts and then on printing up a fake check before they waste $10-$15 on overnighting the check. Then I get them to waste a few more days texting wondering why I haven't called contacted them to set up pick up with their delivery guy.
Pricks. Guess what? I'm not sure if you saw the thread about my idiot phone a month or so ago when my email accounts were getting way sketchy again (that hacky hack thing that refuses to die). 'Microsoft' called from a 212 (NYC) exchange yesterday, but didn't leave a message. GTF outta here. As @Sam Hammer mentioned, NEVER say yes if someone asks if it's you (your name). "Is this so and so?" NEVER, EVER SAY YES. I'll have to try find the video, but this one guy is a genius. I wish I was even 1/4 as smart. I have no idea how he did it, because binaries and techno is way over my head, but he rigged a system at home to target scammers who were targeting him. They messed with the wrong person, and boy, did they get theirs. Basically what he did was flood a call center in India until they started to freak the F out. The place was called over 30K times an hour. It shut down. Then he did it to another one, and the place got raided and everyone was arrested, hahaha. Score one for the good guys.
I love people that do that stuff. That's also way above my head, but I've seen a few youtube channels that are run by groups of people who are dedicated to calling and annoying these scammers 24/7. Sometimes it's hilarious and they legitimately scare the crap out of these scammers. Basically the goal is to distract them so much that it takes away from their ability to scam by flooding them with calls.
I really want to make an effort to hunt it down. He also gets someone to pick up (no CLUE how he did it) and said, "I see that you live at such and such place. Can I come over? Plane tickets are cheap these days." *CLICK* Hahahahahaha.
