The FTC has sent out a warning about these calls targeting the Chinese community pretending to be the embassy.
"The Federal Trade Commission warned this week that mobile spam calls are now targeting the Chinese community in the US, with the robocaller pretending to be from the Chinese Embassy. The messages range from asking the recipient to pick up a package or document from a Chinese Consulate office and offering to exchange yuan to dollars, to the Embassy investigating a fraud and requiring personal information to avoid deportation.
The FTC believes these calls are targeting Chinese immigrants or callers with Chinese last names, but in recent weeks, the practice has reached numbers across the US regardless of who the number is registered to. Like other spam calls, the incoming number appear to be similar to the recipient’s own phone number, or spoofs the Chinese Embassy’s real phone number which begins with (212) 244. In addition to calls, the FTC warns that similar scams may also be targeting users via WeChat"
Apparently, they are ramping up because they’re working, unfortunately: millions of dollars have been scammed from mostly older Chinese immigrants over the past few months as a result of these calls.
I had the fascinating experience of sitting in on a high school English class during my time in Beijing. One of the common assignments was to practice speaking by calling American phone numbers that students in the intro programming classes had scraped from the internet. With exams coming up it's possible that students are making phone calls on their own to get practice.
Does anyone else find it troubling that scammers and spammers using spoofed calling numbers are doing to the voice phone system what spammers did to email, and before that, to NNTP? (The "Green Card" spam was 24 years ago.)
Do you have a NYC number? Or is this happening across the US? I've been getting them for a couple of months now and there was just a post on the NYC subreddit the other day talking about it. I thought I was the only one, and since I don't speak Mandarin, I assumed someone just accidentally gave my number to a Chinese business of some sort.
No Chinese calls, but I have seen robo calls on my phone which come from similar area code (906)370-xxxx
Those happen to be some Bahamas Cruise ones. I wonder how they manage to spoof the number from identical area code.
From what I have been able to gather they are using data centers that have fewer qualms with certain activities and installing Asterix PBX's server which they use for the calls.
Spoofing numbers is extremely easy. You can even download mobile apps and do it from your phone.
I'm not sure why telcos don't restrict this to at least verified numbers. But it probably has something to do with interoperability of the world's myriad of different telcos that have to be interoperable.
They are absolutely targeting cities with large Asian populations. It's not random.
This is the breakdown for incoming calls to the Nomorobo honeypot for 4/1/2018-4/23/18 that have called more than one line from 212-244-[0000-9999] (the last 4 digits change frequently, just like regular neighbor spoofing).
Data source: Our honeypot consists of over 300k lines from around the country that people have gotten rid of, mostly due to getting so many robocalls. It's the main weapon that we use to build our blacklist.
to_npa to_nxx calls lines city, st
646 233 1383 642 NEW YORK, NY
347 218 935 783 BROOKLYN, NY
415 965 266 266 BOLINAS, CA
917 563 192 147 NEW YORK, NY
718 878 176 152 FLUSHING, NY
617 767 57 56 SOMERVILLE, MA
562 200 56 56 LONG BEACH, CA
626 427 50 40 LOS ANGELES, CA
201 546 44 44 HACKENSACK, NJ
323 203 19 19 LOS ANGELES, CA
650 492 19 19 MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA
832 293 15 13 HOUSTON, TX
857 488 12 12 BOSTON, MA
845 262 10 10 SPRING VALLEY, NY
585 286 10 10 ROCHESTER, NY
949 393 9 9 MISSION VIEJO, CA
206 535 9 9 SEATTLE, WA
267 457 8 8 PHILADELPHIA, PA
716 989 7 7 BUFFALO, NY
310 400 7 7 LOS ANGELES, CA
510 250 7 7 OAKLAND, CA
516 279 6 6 GARDEN CITY, NY
929 200 6 5 FLUSHING, NY
909 214 3 3 ONTARIO, CA
315 982 3 3 UTICA, NY
848 260 3 3 METUCHEN, NJ
908 360 3 3 MILLINGTON, NJ
301 825 2 2 ROCKVILLE, MD
212 687 2 2 NEW YORK, NY
202 813 2 2 WASHINGTON, DC
I got one of those, and let my Chinese coworker listen to it and tell me what it was about. She got the same call, and when she called the number back (which was the Chinese Embassy in San Francisco), they got mad at her.
19 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 55.8 ms ] thread"The Federal Trade Commission warned this week that mobile spam calls are now targeting the Chinese community in the US, with the robocaller pretending to be from the Chinese Embassy. The messages range from asking the recipient to pick up a package or document from a Chinese Consulate office and offering to exchange yuan to dollars, to the Embassy investigating a fraud and requiring personal information to avoid deportation.
The FTC believes these calls are targeting Chinese immigrants or callers with Chinese last names, but in recent weeks, the practice has reached numbers across the US regardless of who the number is registered to. Like other spam calls, the incoming number appear to be similar to the recipient’s own phone number, or spoofs the Chinese Embassy’s real phone number which begins with (212) 244. In addition to calls, the FTC warns that similar scams may also be targeting users via WeChat"
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/22/17267970/ftc-robot-scam-c...
I’ll run some stats on 212-244 numbers in a few.
But seriously, what kind of question is this?
https://sanfranciscopolice.org/article/sfpd-issues-warning-t...
Does anyone else find it troubling that scammers and spammers using spoofed calling numbers are doing to the voice phone system what spammers did to email, and before that, to NNTP? (The "Green Card" spam was 24 years ago.)
Residing in Toronto, Ontario.
No idea what it's saying, and I'm assuming your transcription is just creating garbage by assuming the mandarin is english?
https://www.nomorobo.com/lookup/212-244-9392
I’ll run some stats in a few.
Edit - grammar
I'm not sure why telcos don't restrict this to at least verified numbers. But it probably has something to do with interoperability of the world's myriad of different telcos that have to be interoperable.
This is the breakdown for incoming calls to the Nomorobo honeypot for 4/1/2018-4/23/18 that have called more than one line from 212-244-[0000-9999] (the last 4 digits change frequently, just like regular neighbor spoofing).
Data source: Our honeypot consists of over 300k lines from around the country that people have gotten rid of, mostly due to getting so many robocalls. It's the main weapon that we use to build our blacklist.