Oooh... fun with scams

Okay--so... I get phoned... out of the blue. Apparently somebody wanted to offer me a free Solo Bell Cell Phone. Not certain if it was legit, and figuring it was mostly a scam, I bite. That is, until there was an sensitive data that would need to be released.

Now, the signal on the other end was... horrible. There was sound artifacts, there was compression quirbles--it was a bad signal. Maybe my phone was just dying--I doubted it... but well, maybe it was.

They gave a really really long list of features that the free phone, with no activation fee, no shipping and handling would have--should I pay a monthly fee of thirty Canadian Dollars.

Now, okay--maybe I can have good things. I figured, lets just see where this goes. He tells me, that his supervisor would have to get to me--so just wait five minutes until he phones back.

Kind of funny behaviour from a Telco like Solo Mobility? One under that whole Bell Umbrella. Yes, I have had issues with them in the past... but this is on the same level as "Uncle Pete's Backshed Telecommunications".

So, I pretty much get phoned back right after the whole hang up. I barely had put the phone down.

I give them my name "Kat Payne" and my home address... and yes, this phone is a good way to get a hold of me.

Then they needed one more thing... my Social Insurance Number.

I answered that I was not prepared to give that over the phone.

He assured me that it was a secure connection, and that my SIN would be used to generate my unique account id--we will not go into everything that is wrong with that...

I told him, that I only had his word for that.

"But Bell would never do that sort of thing to their customers."

"I only have your word that you are from Bell."

He gave me a toll free number, that he said would say he is from Bell.

I followed this number with a reverse look up... to find out it was owned by Paetec. Any further look ups do not show much of any affiliation with Bell.

BTW, when given silly numbers like that, I suggest doing a reverse lookup on them, before going further.

I mean, okay--had his scam been well polished enough... I would have bitten. I would have... but in this case, the issues were:

• Compression issues in the phone calls. It was like listening to a 68KBPS MP3 that had been put onto vinyl. There was also a fair amount of background noise. Sounded like he was doing this on a pay phone really. Do a better sounding phone call, and cut out that background crap.
• The prompt contact by the busy supervisor. There are a lot of people that a free phone would be nice to give to, and he did say he was busy--seriously... fifteen minutes would be a standard minimum wait, I'd think.
• The lack of hold. That I could not be put onto hold, while his supervisor was contacted. Waiting on hold for fifteen minutes would have made me a lot more convinced.
• The fact that on the look up of his "Official Bell Agent Number" it did not list itself as being affiliated in anyway with Bell Canada. Further more, it was a number from a US Asterisk company. Had his number been registered as something that looked like it was Bell Canada, I would have been inclined to bite even more so.

If these details would have been removed, without any others, I probably would have bought into it.

Come on people--put some effort into these scams! You are better than this!