Since it appears many of these robo calls are not successful, I wonder what they will try next in order to make entry to us? Or maybe, there are enough people who do answer and fall for the "pitch" that they will keep doing it for a while?
TG
It’s somewhat hard to believe they’re successful but they are. There’s quite a bit of psychology involved, mostly involving fear, shame, and embarrassment. There are places in Nigeria, Ghana, and a few other places where internet and phone scamming with threats of arrest, romance scams, etc. is a respected profession. They train new people and have honed their craft like any other profession.
A few years ago, I had an employee who almost fell victim to an “IRS pay or go to jail” phone scam. She was an intelligent, hard working woman in her late 30’s. Due to her demeanor and diminutive size she was often referred to as “the rabid squirrel”, a moniker she accepted with pride. Her job included civil investigations so she was well versed in fraud schemes and people not being entirely truthful. She moved to the U.S. from a Northern European country in her mid-20’s. She was familiar with U.S. tax law but not much familiar with enforcement tactics.
One afternoon she came into my office falling all to pieces crying and upset because the IRS in Washington, DC had called her and told her there was a warrant for her arrest due to unpaid taxes which she could clear up with a $5000 payment immediately over the phone or she would be taken to jail the next day and possibly deported if she still couldn’t pay. She didn’t know what to do so she’d told them it would take a couple days to get the money to them and she’d call back when it was ready to send. Of course they wouldn’t let her call back, but they agreed they’d give her a little time and would call her the next evening for her account number and routing number.
Of course I told her it was a scam, the IRS doesn’t work that way, etc. and if they called back to either don’t talk to them or tell them things I can’t say in a polite forum. She was still wound up, so we ran a check on the number from her caller ID. It was a burner phone purchased in New York City 2 days before. She transitioned from very scared to very angry and a bit embarrassed. Told her if I was in her country and the taxing authority called me with a similar threat, I’d probably be a bit wound up myself.
Saw her a couple days later and asked her if she’d cleared up her tax issue. She said she almost didn’t tell anyone, including me, due to embarrassment of having a criminal warrant with her name on it, but figured if there was any chance of keeping her license, salvaging her career, and staying in the U.S. she had to involve me. The scammer did call her to follow up on payment. She said she spoke to them only to utilize the skills she had picked up from me on how to properly utilize ear burning profanity in southern U.S. English. Interestingly, by the second call, they had done some research and one of their tacks, upon being called out, was to admit they were scamming and ask her what her employer would think about one of their fraud investigators falling for a fraud scheme. Of course she told them her manager was already aware and had advised her to tell them to “do bad things to themselves and go to bad places”.
Often if the scammer intimidates a mark out of $1, it’s like a hook in a fishes mouth. If the mark realizes their error and tries to stop sending money, they switch tactics. A popular one for elderly marks: “What would your children Bobby, Frank, and Cheryl think about you giving your bank info to a stranger who pretended to be with the IRS? The only people we get to do that are doddering idiots. They’ll take away your driver license, the rest of your money, your house, and put you in a retirement home.”
You are correct that if it didn’t pay off they wouldn’t do it. But it does pay. And they are very good at reading their marks and playing on their psychology to extract money. IMO, they’re extremely despicable people.
