I got this voicemail the other day from “Rachel at cardholder services”:
(If the embedded player doesn’t work, here’s the direct link)
This one is kinda clever, that rather than a human using high-pressure tactics to get you to enter your credit card number, what you hear instead is a recorded message which asks you to “press 1 to get a lower interest rate”. Had I pressed 1, I suspect I’d be transferred to a nice sounding human operator who would try to coax me into giving them my credit card number.
There’s two takeaways from this:
- Never give out your card card number to someone who calls you on the phone. (caller ID can be spoofed)
- Strongly consider against picking up the phone when an unknown number calls you. Let it go to voicemail. If it’s someone trying to get a hold of you, you can listen to the voicemail right away (or use Google Voice, which does transcripts), and call the person back.
Stay safe.