It’s new to me, anyway. I got it twice today, in two versions. A recording calls and says that “An illegal package with your name on is being held at the US border. In order to clear this up with authorities press one to talk to an agent. Failure to do this will get you impeached.” That’s what they said! Impeached! Foreigner scammers unclear on what the word impeached means to us, I guess. The second one was even more confused sounding. “This is a a direct important call from your government about package at border with your name, you must …”
I assume that if I press one it either puts me on with someone who will try to pretend they’re a government agent and demand money to keep me out of jail –or offer me a reward but first I must give them my bank account number and social security number or send them a fee…OR, pressing one triggers some kind of intrusion into my phone so they can plunder my personal information…This particular bumbling scam made me laugh. I was sorry a live person wasn’t on so I could fuck with them…
I’m not youthful, at this time in my life, and calls like this (like the ones that tell them they’re in trouble with the IRS when they’re not) target elderly people–lists go around amongst scammers– as the elderly are thought to be fearful and easily scammed. Trouble is, they often are just that. They need to be told this stuff isn’t real. Here’s a new one you can tell them about.
It’s hard to decide what sort of people are the very lowest forms of parasite. There are so many levels of interpersonal parasitism, and predation. But the psychopaths who deliberately target elderly people for scams are very, very close to the lowest form of parasite.