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Another kind of scam


Mexiken

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My young bilingual Mexican friend Miguel called me a few days ago in a state about our mutual friend Norm. Miguel had gotten a call on his cell phone from Norm's son Richard to say that on their return journey home to Ajijic, in a car that Norm had very recently purchased in Georgia, They had had a fender-bender on the road from Guad to Lakeside and that the owner of the other car - a BMW if you please - was slightly injured and had gone to the hospital accompanied by Norm while Richard was dealing with another occupant of the car and he needed $3,000 MXN to avoid arrest. Miguel was convinced that he was talking to Richard, Norm's son to whom he had spoken by phone recently - a week or so ago to discuss this very trip. Well, as you might suspect from the subject, it turned out that it wasn't Richard at all.

 

So I said ok, I can give you the money but I can’t drive you there, take a taxi. So Miguel calls “Richard” back and tells him the plan but the Mexican says no wait, here’s a better idea. Deposit the money at Seven-Eleven To this account - and he gives a number. So we did.

 

But here's the thing: Miguel says that none of his previous communication with Richard about the planned return trip was conducted by email. It was all phone calls. And they had talked about the new car.

 

So, we lost a few thousand pesos  but the implication is that people are able to tap into phone calls, live I guess.


Is this possible? Anyone else?

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I had a call much like that to three or four years ago. Luckily the person calling used the last name of Johnson, not Johanson. He too was a close relative. I don't know if I were to have caught on had he said Johanson instead of saying Johnson.

What I remember most was how accurate some of the information was. And when I posted about it several of my friends and/or acquaintances said.

"Welcome to Mexico". they all new I had already been here quite some time. I guess they meant that it has happened to many of us and that I was lucky they screwed up and I was able to walk away free after not having lost anything.

Sorry but to surprised to hear that they are at it again. so thanks for the warning and "welcome to Mexico"  Only kidding sorry.

My call came via Telmex, not my cell phone.

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I had a similar call to my cell phone saying my brother was in car accident in SMA, where he lives, He is hospitalized and needs 10,000 pesos fast for blood transfusion, Put at account at 7-11, the only trouble with this scam call, is that my brother is on the Orient Express in Europe, Unfortunitely I deleated the number or I would put here to alert others

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9 hours ago, Mexiken said:

So, we lost a few thousand pesos  but the implication is that people are able to tap into phone calls, live I guess.
Is this possible? Anyone else?

This scam is never by email. Local phone numbers are available in several directories, and the scammers seem to be fairly good at getting basic information to get started.

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An elderly friend (in his 90's) got ripped off by the identical scam, fender bender, BMW, $3,000 pesos, etc., with my friend thinking he was talking with me (hard of hearing) and he went straight down to an Oxxo and sent $3K to the account number the scammer gave. Nobody knew about the scam until he called me and wanted to know why I never came by to repay him the $3K pesos.

It hurt me that he got ripped off, but on the flip side, I did not realize he was such a good friend that he would pony up $3K for me! <g>

He did not want to waste time making a report and now knows how to avoid such scams in the future.

We are not sure how the scammer got my information, but suspect he got it from hacking my friend's e-mail address book.

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I feel bad for the people who get taken by these scams, but I really can't understand why anyone would transfer money to someone via OXO on the basis of a phone call. Someone you actually know who might be in trouble would be open to having you deposit or transfer $ to their bank acct. (which could be traced).

Perhaps the acct.# to which you deposited the $ at OXO could be traced as well. Has anyone who has been taken by these scams given this information to the police? Not talking about municipal police, who seem to not care too much about things. State police or federal police.

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