Cheap long distance, the ability to spoof caller ID and the credit crisis are being used to facilitate a scam called vishing. Although telephone (telemarketing) scams are nothing new, the term vishing probably came about because advances in telephone technology are being used to depart unsuspecting people of their hard-earned money.
The term vishing was coined from the word phishing. Internet scammers phish the waters of the Internet using spam e-mail as bait. Once a person falls for their "too good to be true" lure, personal and financial information is stolen using social engineering (trickery) or malicious software designed to data-mine the information right off the infected machine. The personal and financial information is then used to commit financial crimes, which is often referred to as identity theft.
In the past week, I've received several calls where a computerized voice informs me that the offer to lower my interest rate is almost over. It then says to press "1" if I want to lower my interest rate.
I went ahead and pressed the number "1" to see what this "too good to be true" offer was all about. After a few seconds, a female voice came on and asked me if I was interested in lowering my interest rate. I told her I was and she asked me for the 800 number of my financial institution so she could verify my eligibility. Since this is public information, I went ahead and gave one to an institution I no longer do business with. While I was digging up the number on the Internet, she made a lot of inquires about how many lines of credit I was behind on. After providing her with the 800 number, she asked me to give her all the credit card numbers that I wanted to lower the interest rate on.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - raine
i've been getting this call for awhile now. Today, i actually pushed one and when i asked the guy if he worked for capital one he said no and called me stupid that capital one was a bank, then continued to be ugly, finally hanging up on me. i tried to get more info but to no avail, thus the search on google. thanks for blogging about this.
2 - donna
yes just today i received that call to reduce my interest rate, she asked me for the 188 # on the bake of my credit card, when i said she can call me back after i get her credentials she hung up on me very abruptly end of that.
3 - tm
We are getting the same calls but they say press 9 and it connects you to a operator. They just hang up on you if you sound to smart. This last one I tried to follow along with the scam but still got hung up on. Have reported it to the do not call website perhaps they will find them oneday and can use the complaints to arrest them.
If anyone finds out a phone # or a business name we need it to report them for violating the do not call list.
4 - EW
Thanks for blogging about this. I received this call too, they hung up on me when I asked them to take me off the list. This happened right after opening a very official looking scam letter about property tax reassessment(return address of PO Box 25519 in LA, CA). Scams are on the rise indeed!
5 - J in annapolis
Yup, I just received this call tonight. Press 6 to lower your interest rate. I pressed 6 to find the name of the company (I routinely report violaters of the Do Not Call list....especially if they call while I'm putting my kids to bed!!!) As soon as I asked the compnay name, she hung up on me.
6 - Justin
I just received a call from some MCS something claiming that they would lower my CC interest to below 6% based on my perfect payment history. I then called my credit card provider to verify any of this and it turns out it's definitely a scam. Credit card companies don't call you for that stuff.
7 - Rita
I got called last night. Pressed 1 and got transferred. The line was very fuzzy and I could barely hear the lady. She asked me lots of questions. Did not ask for the bank 800 number. Asked for my balances on all of my credit cards. Also said that to qualify for the lower interest rate I had to have a balance greater than 3000 on any given credit card. Then she asked me for my credit card numbers to verify my identity. I mentioned that I had security questions that are used to verify my identity. She kept trying to reassure me that this wasn't a scam and she needed the card numbers. I respectfully declined then she hung up on me. I have the phone number on my caller ID. The Caller ID read 'Card Services' and if I remember correctly, the area code came from 402 or 408.
8 - Joe
I got this yesterday. The guy told me that if I didn't want them to call that I should disconnect my phone. He then called me a racist and at one point asked who my mortgage is with. after some time yelling at him I hung up.
9 - Kate
I just hung up with a very eloquent and nice lady who was so convincing that I gave her one of my account numbers for a Visa card. She said due to my on time payments I was eligible. She asked for the APR on my other cards. She put me on hold to "call to verify your account" and during that hold time I realized what was going on. I just got off the phone with my visa credit card company whose acct. number I provided and alerted them. They confirmed there have been many calls regarding this scam.
10 - Ed Dennis
Where the hell is the government? We pay these bozo's big money to protect us from these scams and they can put a stop to it in a flash but they don't, and I wonder why? Everyone should call their attorney general or better yet write a letter to the editor in your local newspaper complaining that nothing is being done to stop these calls.
11 - Norm T
Got my call again, press 1 and ask that they take me off the call list and got told I was stupid to do that... I don't pay credit card interest and don't need this. you can tell they were not very educated
12 - w.t.
I gave them the 1888 # on the back of my card , then he asked for my secure # on my card . Thats when I hung up .
13 - donahy
I also received one of these scam calls. It stated to press 1 if I wanted to lower my interest rates...2 if I did not want to be called again. The number 2, naturally, did not work. After a number of voice mails left previously , I finally decided to see who was calling me since I don't have any credit cards with balances. When they answered the call, he immediately wanted my credit card numbers so he could lower my interest rates. At that point, I told him if he was calling about my credit cards, he should have that information. He said he needed the numbers to prove I was the owner of the card. He then asked how much I owned on my credit card. Again, I told him he would have that information if he was from the credit card company. I repeated myself again...that he should have my numbers...and he laughed and then hung up on me. It was from area code 402, but I would suspect they move around frequently.
14 - Julie B.
I have gotten 2 calls so far from these scams. The first one sounded very legit. I went through the 1-800# bit and they asked if I owed more then $5000 in CC debt I said yes, that is when I was asked for a CC# to verify the balance I was telling them to make sure I was who I said I was by verifying the balance. I told them I was reading from my statement and I did not feel comfortable giving that information to them and they should have the information in front of them since they called me. The lady on they other end said WELL DO YOU FEEL COMFORTABLE PAYING THOSE HIGH INTEREST RATES? Really snitty like. I told her that I do feel comfortable with it but what I don't feel comfortable being subjected to a telephone scam, that is when she hung up on me...
15 - hockeygrl
Just got this call a few minutes. I found it odd since it came on my work number. I pressed 1 because I was curious about who it was, since the message simply says "card member services". When a live person answered and said "card member services" I asked who exactly was calling me... The response I got was dial tone. Scam indeed...scary that this has been going on for a while. The problem is that by the time I realize it was a scam, they hung up and I wasn't able to get the phone number off caller ID.
16 - at work
I got called again at work today. I asked for the phone number and the number they gave me was a joke line. I asked for a supervisor and she got on laughing and called me a BITCH.
17 - overworkedandunderpaid
I also got one of these calls this evening. I was curious, of course, because who wouldn't want to lower their interest rates? I got a call from 562-223-8884 and got a voice recorded message asking me to press 9 if I wanted to learn how to lower my interest rates. Being curious, I pressed 9 and a man came on the line and did his spill about interest rates and lowering them to as low as 9% if I qualified. He asked for my credit card # and the 1800 number on the back of my card. Being the dummy that I am (at least for today), I gave him the number and he verified my account was in good standing. He asked me for the 3-digit code on the back of my card and I asked him why and what company he worked for. He told me Freedom Choice Financial. I told him I would not give him that information, that he could send me the information through the mail. He asked me how to spell my name, for confirmation on checking my account, and I did not give that out either! If he had my phone number, then why didn't they have my name? He transferred me to his accounts manager or something, whose name he said was Marcus Johnson and guaranteed that I could save up to $2500 in all...He asked asked again how to spell my name and I would not tell him and I hung up on him. He called back and I did not take the call. The number was 407-722-5287. He left a voicemail and said that I must not be interested in lowering my interest rates and that they would just keep going up.
I called my Credit Card company and told them the story. They are now sending me new account numbers and immediately closing the old account. Just to be safe, I also opened a fraud protection, just for a few months for this to blow over.
Good luck everyone...
18 - Catharine
We received the same call from Freedom Financial Choice the other day on my husbands cell phone, Thank god he did not give him any info, he asked me to look it up on line and see if there have been any scams. So glad for this web site/ blog.
19 - Djani
I just called my phone company. I am in Canada. We have a DO NOT CALL LIST but it only works for numbers originating in Canada. The number I keep getting a call from is 321-735-9687. When I call that number, a recording says the number is not in service, so it is obvious I think that it is a call from a computer VOIP. Once I answered the call, then pressed 1 "to lower my CC interest rate". When the person came on the line I told him in my angriest voice that I was tired of these calls -- I did not use bad language. He made some sort of reply then hung up on me. Today when I got home there was that number again on my caller i.d. Frustrating!!!
20 - TCS1983
Ok, so what to do about this? I havent heard of any solutions yet.
21 - mh32771
I got this same Freedom Choice Services call. Twice. Last week when i was in NY at a trade show this guy calls me asking if i want to lower my cc interest rates. I told him sure, who wouldn't? but that i couldn't talk with him about it then, could he call me later. He asked for a day and time which I gave and said goodbye. So he calls me back today, which was our arranged day and time. He was very polite and definitly not trying to make me upset or suspicious. He went through his spiel....the same one all of you guys are talking about. How many cards, how much debt blah blah. When it got to the part about me giving him credit card numbers, expiration date, ccv numbers, I'm like whoa, slow the heck down. I told him "I don't even know who you are some stranger calling me asking for all of this really sensitive financial info" He was so smooth. Totally trying to reassure me that they were legit and trying to work within the government guidlines and that's why he needed to "verify" my accounts. I said oh yeah well what's the name of your company and where are you located. He told me Freedom Choice Services and that his office was right here in Orlando, where I'm located. He was totally trying to buddy up and be my "friend" doing me a favor he said. So I said "I doubt your doing me a favor, what kinda fee do you get and who pays it?" He said that the fee varied depending on how much they were able to lower my interest rate and then it was "absorbed" by that savings. I said "absorbed what the heck does that mean?" He just repeated the same thing. I said that makes absolutely no sense. I said "How do you get paid? I know you're not doing this for free. Who writes you a check? Me or my credit card company?" He then admitted that it would be me because i would still pay like i was paying my regular credit card bills. I told him that I would have to do some research on this Freedom Choice Services before I was going to give him any valuable information. He said he completely understood. Actually gave me a url which he said was the company. It was www.freedomchoiceservices.info.com , when I looked it up it went to Freedom Choice Financial. So I told him I would do research and if he wanted to call me back he could. We settled on Friday at 2pm. I'm telling you all it's amazing that this guy was soooo slick and persistant. But he was also really nice and not rude in the slightest. If I wasn't just naturally skeptical having grown up in NYC, I probably would have given him my info. It's really scary how good these people are. There wasn't any rudeness, hanging up, cursing or anything like that. It will be interesting to see if he calls me back. Naturally he won't get anything. [Edited]
Stay safe everyone and thank goodness for blogs like this one.
22 - Pamela
I find it funny that a company tries to help consumers lower their interest rates and we Americans assume it's a scam. What ever happened to a business just trying to make money? That's obviously what the banks are out for... so what a company tries to provide a service to help. You should look up your banks' ratings and see how many complaints they have. I think it's wonderful that there are companies out there trying to help us keep our money in our pockets. I've signed up with Freedom Choice Services and my interest rates have gone from 21% down to 9.9% fixed so just becasue you didn't get a warm and fuzzy feeling, don't ruin it for others.
23 - Frank
Hi Pamela, weren't you the one from Freedom Choice Services I spoke to?
24 - Tasha Mack
All you people sound dumb
25 - linda
i read all these comments, and i haven't seen not one person who actually used the service and got taken for anything. just a whole bunch of people with nothing to do assuming the worste because of a phone call. actually nieve enough to follow what a stranger blogged just to feel assured about an assumption. assume- ass of u and me. peer pressure, the exact thing we teach our children not to follow. a blog full of followers. read between the lines. if this freedom choice is such a scam than why haven't i seen anybody say they're card was charged with no service. if the company was fraudulent than they would've been shut down by now don't you think? and they obviously get business if their still up and running. and no customer that took advantage of their services is on here complaining yet soooo....... but come to think about it people say the same stuff about loan remodifications too, yet it's helped millions of people save their homes. bottom line. if you haven't tried the company yourself... in reality your opinions are pointless. besides i don't think a whole call center would work for minimum wage just to help the next guy (they probably don't even know) make money.. that's kind of stupid. and if your a card holder you should know that any charge to your card can be tracked to the owner of that merchant account that took your money. do you actually think that these credit card companys cannot track another merchant for their money? because it's borrowed money for us and it's the banks money any scam artist are playing with. that's why i say if they were a fraudulent company they would've been shut down by now. i see comments from back in january. you know how many cards have probably been serviced since than? probably alot so where are the people who payed for no service. i haven't seen them yet. think people. that's what brains are for. if you think it's such a scam then go through with the service and track them down.