LAYTON, Utah — It’s a crime on your dime that is happening more often than you think.
Scammers are finding new, clever ways to make off with not just money, but merchandise all under the guise of a legitimate company.
One Utah woman says you can’t always trust that people are who they say they are.
“I answered it and the individual stated his name was Joseph Rodriguez and that he was calling from one of our Layton T-Mobile stores,” recalls Winter Becerril.
Becerril, who lives in Layton, saID “Joseph” told her someone was trying to gain access to her account from a local store. She immediately told him she hadn’t permitted anyone to have access to her account.
“He kept putting me on hold, but then he would say, ‘I’m going to send you a verification code so that you know it’s T-Mobile.' I’m like, 'Okay, I have that with T-Mobile quite a bit,'" said Becerril.
"The verification code came and it was in the same feed of text messages from previous verification codes for other transactions that I had had.”
Winter thought her account was being secured, only to find out later that was not the case.
“The whole time I’m saying, ‘No, I do not authorize anyone and please secure my account’, he was opening my account and putting stuff on as we were speaking.”
A $1,300 Samsung phone. Someone had opened a new line in her account.
After talking to the real T-Mobile, a customer service rep told Becerril the transaction had been made at a T-Mobile in Arizona.
“I asked her what was going to take place, if I was still going to be liable for the phone and the monthly payment for the phone plus the amount of the additional line while they figure it out. She told me yes, I very well could be responsible,” said Becerril.
T-Mobile cancelled the line so the phone could no longer be used.
FOX 13 Investigates first reached out to T-Mobile to get their response and asked if there was any recourse for Winter’s troubles.
“We don’t share account details with others, but we can share that our care team worked directly with Ms. Becerril," the company said in a statement. "CallerID spoofing is when a bad actor uses a known company name to make a call appear valid. The bad actors then misrepresent who they are and why they are calling.”
But how was someone able to access Becerril's account?
Fraud and security analyst John Buzzard explained what happened was not just a form of CallerID spoofing, but a “victim in the middle” scam that usually would involve two criminals.
“One criminal is portraying themselves as an official representative of a business partner or service provider. At the same moment, the other individual concurrently is either dialed into a customer service line or using web or app interface that may trigger a one-time pass code that can be sent legitimately by the service provider,” said Buzzard. “It looks really official until the criminal says, ‘Now read this back to me’, and then that’s when things kind of get out of control.”
While Becerril did think the caller was T-Mobile trying to secure her account, there was a red flag she says she overlooked: the caller sounded like they were in a call center.
Buzzard offered a tip on how consumers can protect themselves.
“If you’re receiving contact from someone, just hang up and verify," he warned. "It takes two minutes and it’s a lot cheaper and a lot less hassle if you do.”
Becerril’s advice is to trust your gut and know you can never be too careful.
Buzzard added other ways people can be protected from scams like this one and what to look out for.
He says beware of incoming uninvited contact, and if the company seems to be calling out of the blue, there’s reason to be skeptical. Again, hang up and call the company yourself.
With all the phone scams out there, ask service providers for tips on how to secure your account. This can often be done in the form of security questions that only subscribers would know the answers to.
And if anyone notices suspicious activity, go online and freeze credit with all three credit bureaus. Even if people don’t suspect anything unusual, credit can be frozen until they expect a credit check for a big purchase.