Scammer got my wife's Social mainly because of spoofed Caller Id

[Jkninja]

im in Texas and my wife got a voicemail from a county sheriffs office nearby asking her to report at a nearby police station to surrender or call a Washington DC number to talk about an IRS case on my wife's name. After doing her research about that number and confirming it came from a county sheriffs office , she called the other number and the guy went on to explain her rights and told her that she needed to pay a huge fine to IrS failing which will get her behind bars. At the start of the conversation she had given her social when he asked but I stopped her before she could give any financial information to pay the alleged fine.

Now all this happened because of the ID spoofing. Though I don't know what method he used to spoof, there are tons of apps in the Google store that let anyone spoof caller Ids. Is this a fair case for me to file a class action on Google for letting their customers use such dangerous apps? They sti have a lot of apps in the play store that can spoof caller ids

 

[davew128]

So rather than blame either the bad person, or your idiot wife, you want to file a class action suit against Google, which had nothing to do with it.

 

[Proserpina]

im in Texas and my wife got a voicemail from a county sheriffs office nearby asking her to report at a nearby police station to surrender or call a Washington DC number to talk about an IRS case on my wife's name. After doing her research about that number and confirming it came from a county sheriffs office , she called the other number and the guy went on to explain her rights and told her that she needed to pay a huge fine to IrS failing which will get her behind bars. At the start of the conversation she had given her social when he asked but I stopped her before she could give any financial information to pay the alleged fine.

Now all this happened because of the ID spoofing. Though I don't know what method he used to spoof, there are tons of apps in the Google store that let anyone spoof caller Ids. Is this a fair case for me to file a class action on Google for letting their customers use such dangerous apps? They sti have a lot of apps in the play store that can spoof caller ids

No.

(char limit)

 

[Silverplum]

My 81 year-old Mother knew better than to fall for that.

 

[Zigner]

Even my good friend, who was in the middle of dealing with some serious IRS matters, had the good sense to check this scam out carefully...

 

[FlyingRon]

Why do you think that GOOGLE is responsible for receiving a spoofed caller ID. THere are many companies that provide this serivce and in fact, the scammers probably know how to spoof the caller ID even without paying money to a spoofing company (all it takes is an outward long distance trunk...boiler room scam places won't have any problem setting these up).

Further, even if you 100% knew which caller ID spoofing company they were using, if the they used one, it's not even clear you're going to recover against them.

 

[Zigner]

Further, even if you 100% knew which caller ID spoofing company they were using, if the they used one, it's not even clear you're going to recover against them.

Or, knock on wood, that there will ever be a reason to seek recovery. (Perhaps nothing will ever come of it...)

 

[davew128]

Even my good friend, who was in the middle of dealing with some serious IRS matters, had the good sense to check this scam out carefully...

You wouldn't believe the number of people who take these calls seriously, despite the fact that:

a) The IRS doesn't call taxpayers as a first measure and
b) One doesn't go to prison for simply owing money.

 

[TheGeekess]

im in Texas and my wife got a voicemail from a county sheriffs office nearby asking her to report at a nearby police station to surrender or call a Washington DC number to talk about an IRS case on my wife's name. After doing her research about that number and confirming it came from a county sheriffs office , she called the other number and the guy went on to explain her rights and told her that she needed to pay a huge fine to IrS failing which will get her behind bars. At the start of the conversation she had given her social when he asked but I stopped her before she could give any financial information to pay the alleged fine.

Now all this happened because of the ID spoofing. Though I don't know what method he used to spoof, there are tons of apps in the Google store that let anyone spoof caller Ids. Is this a fair case for me to file a class action on Google for letting their customers use such dangerous apps? They sti have a lot of apps in the play store that can spoof caller ids

How do you know that it wasn't a PC or a iSomething in use?

 

[FlyingRon]

You wouldn't believe the number of people who take these calls seriously, despite the fact that:

a) The IRS doesn't call taxpayers as a first measure and
b) One doesn't go to prison for simply owing money.

Further, the IRS already knows your social security number.

 

[FlyingRon]

An APP can't spoof caller ID. Caller ID is spoofed by the person injecting the call into the network. There are actually two things: the caller ID itself (ANI), and the biling information (CPN). All these apps do is sset up a call with a spoofing site. As I stated above, you don't know who is spoofing who. Frnakly, I suspect these guys have their own insertion point itno the network and are not dependent on leave a trail through one of the independent spoofing sites.

 

[davew128]

Further, the IRS already knows your social security number.

True, but they would confirm identity. Any taxpayer initiated phone call about their account will include that (obviously) plus a couple other items such as DOB.