Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Offtopic: phone scam

NOTE: the phone number below is what they said on the message. It might be fake, so whoever has that number might be totally innocent.

This was interesting. I got a scam phone call this morning. My best attempt at a transcription as follows:
Hi, my name is Keith Jordan, and this message is intended to contact you regarding an enforcement action executed by the United States Treasury,
intending your serious attention.
 
Ignoring this will be an intentional second attempt to avoid initial appearance before a magistrate judge or a grand jury for a federal criminal offense.
My number is 817 533 9843
I repeat  it's 817 533 9843
I invite you to cooperate with us and help us to help you.
Thank you.
I recorded this to my computer by holding the phone in front of the microphone while playing back the message, and then merging the audio with a photo of the caller id using:
ffmpeg -i /tmp/x.jpg -i scam.wav -acodec copy /tmp/simple.mov
I can display and play the result using mplayer on Debian Linux, not sure how it works anywhere else.

Us Treasury says to report this sort of thing:
www.treasury.gov/services/report-fwa/Pages/Report-Email-Scams.aspx
We'll see what happens.