Acting as Capital One Reports & Reviews (3)
Acting as Capital One Contacts
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SCAMPULSE
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SCAMPULSE
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Type of a scam Credit Cards
Total money lost $1,000
Type of a scam Tech Support
I called the number and was greeted by a very official sounding MS menu that I had to navigate through to get a technician. It was a similar menu to ones that I have navigated through when calling MS (Microsoft) in the past. When I got the technician on-line, I explained what happened. Over the phone, he gave me several instructions to try to resolve the issue myself. One of the instructions that he gave me resulted in a window popping up that indicated that my computer was attacked by a Trogan virus. He indicated that this is a bad virus that MS has been seeing a lot of lately. He indicated that he could remove the virus from my computer, but he would need to be provided remote access. Again, this is something that I have done with MS technicians in the past, and they were able to correct the issue.
I got him remote access. When he got remote access, he indicated that typically what they have been seeing with this virus is that people’s credit card accounts are breeched. He suggested that “we” contact my credit card company to see if there has been any suspicious activity. He indicated that he could initiate a 3-way call with my credit card company so he could explain what MS has been experiencing with this virus. I gave him the Capital One number off the back of my card, and he made the call. It came to the Capital One greeting menu that you need to go through. I provided the information in the Capital One menu to get a service representative. The MS technician explained to the “Capital One” service representative what the situation was. The Capital One service representative said that he could check into the matter for me, but he couldn’t do that with a 3rd party on the line. This sounded very legitimate. He asked if there is another number that I can be contacted at. I said yes, my cell phone. He gave me my cell phone number (he knew my number) and asked if that number is still current. I said yes.
The capital One service representative called me on my cell phone. The caller ID on my cell phone came up with the Capital One number on my credit card. Again, this seemed very legitimate. We revisited what had happened. He said that he was reviewing my account for the last several purchases that I made. He indicated the last 5 previous purchases that I made. They were all legitimate purchases that I recently made. He also indicated that I recently made a credit card payment and the amount, all of which were correct. He then indicated that there is a $7,000 charge that originated in Ukraine and that I approved via email. I told him that I didn’t make this purchase, receive the email, or approve the purchase. Capital One does have security in place to send an email to confirm a purchase that appears suspicious. I have received a handful over the years. This seemed legitimate other than I didn’t receive the email or approve the purchase. However, being that my computer supposedly had been hacked, I figured that the hacker was somehow able to get to this email, approve it, and make it disappear so I never saw it. I had recently been in my email and did not see it.
The capital One representative then said that I have a couple of ways to try to resolve this issue. Capital One can dispute the charge. He indicated that there is only a 50/50 chance of winning the dispute. He then said that a second option would be to purchase gift cards, load them into my Capital One account, and tie them to the fraudulent charge. This would enable Capital One to investigate the charge and try to catch the fraudsters. When I heard gift cards, I became very suspicious. I started asking more questions of him to verify that he was from Capital One. I asked some additional questions about my account. He was able to answer all of them. (Hind sight, he was probably logged into my account). I reluctantly agreed to purchase gift cards to load into my account.
I purchased 2 gift cards at SAMS club. That is all they would allow at one time. I tried at Walmart, but my card was denied. Walmart does not allow gift card purchases with credit cards. I tried at Target, and my card was denied. The Capital One representative remained on the line the whole time. I told him what had happened. He said that when my card was denied at Walmart, Capital One locked my card and sent me a text message asking if this was me. Sure enough, I had a text message just like he said. Again, this gave me confidence that I was dealing with a legitimate Capital One representative. I indicated that it was me. To check the text message, I had to disconnect from him. He indicated that he would call me back shortly, which he did. Again, the caller ID came up with the Capital One number on my credit card. I purchased 12 gift cards at Target.
I went back home to provide him the card numbers and access numbers. While I was in the process of doing this, I was having a hard time reading the numbers on the cards because the scratch off material was obscuring the numbers. I asked my wife to give me a hand. She freaked out and told me I was being scammed. I told her the Capital One guy is on the phone. She spoke to home, and this scared him off. He hung up. She was right, it was a scam. The fraudster had gotten the numbers from the 2 SAMS club cards and about 4 of the Target cards. Meanwhile, the “MS technician” was still “working” on my computer. He messaged me on my computer that he was almost finished and wanted to call me back. He called back, and the caller ID on my home phone came up with the MS number (indicating MS). I answered the phone and told him that I learned that the Capital One representative wasn’t from Capital One. The MS technician then hung up and ended the remote session.
I immediately called Capital One directly to cancel my credit card. I also immediately initiated a complete McAffe virus scan (my security software). The scan took 11 hours and did not find any viruses, malware, or spyware.
10/12/19: I went to Target with the gift cars and tried to stop payment on them. Seven of the 12 cards had all the funds still on them. Target was able to shut down these cards and refund my money. The representative at Target indicated that it appeared that the fraudsters had spent all the funds on 4 of the cards. For some reason, one card that the fraudsters did not get the number on, she was unable to see the funds on the card. She gave me the number of Target guest services to follow up with.
I followed up with Target guest services. They could see the 7 cards that I was refunded. However, they indicated that it appeared that the funds had not been released for the other 5 cards. They immediately shut down these cards. They asked me to provide copies of the receipts so they could investigate. I provided the information requested by Target. The Target case number is ***. Target is currently investigating. The Target representative felt that I had a decent chance of getting this money back.
I also followed up with SAMS Club. The funds in those 2 cards had been depleted. They told me there is nothing they can do. I am probably out this $1,000.
To further protect from the breach, I changed the passwords on all my accounts. I also followed up with McAffe and had a technician run additional scans on my computer in case the virus software that I have on my computer is not up to date. The McAffe technician was able to see the pop-up window that hit me and she knew it was in MS Edge. She said this is one of the latest issues that McAffe is seeing. I feel moderately confident that I am secure again.
I feel stupid and foolish for falling for this scam. I am not typically a trusting person. I should have known better when gift cards came up. However, the “Capital One” representative seemed so legitimate, I cannot believe it. They are very sophisticated in their ability to utilize legitimate numbers for Capital One and Microsoft, somehow intercept the call and transfer it to fraudsters, and even show the legitimate Capital One and Microsoft numbers on caller ID when they call back. What I don’t know is how the “Capital One” representative knew so much about my account. My theory is that he was able to hack into my account and was looking at it when I was questioning him. I don’t know how he could have known all the information that he did.
Type of a scam Other
I called their sales and service number to mess with them. The recording said to refer to the 16 digit number at the top of the page. Miraculously they could not find that number on their system after trying it twice. The recordings then suggest other ways for them to identify the account. One of the options was social security number!
GIANT WARNING HERE!