Scams are everywhere. While authorities continually work to curb them, scammers are often devising brand-new tricks to victimize more people.
According to the official website of Norton, famous for its anti-virus systems, the average American gets two scam calls and three scam text messages not in a month, but every week. And in Arizona, the state ranks one of the most scammed locations in the North American country.
Also in Arizona, a 90-year-old woman, yes, a 90-year-old woman, may have been scammed a huge way if not for the witty Uber driver.
The woman, who comes from the Village of Oak Creek, got a call from the fraudster, the scammer, pretending to be from Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo is one of the biggest financial institutions in the USA, serving the global market.
She wouldn’t think it was a scammer since it had a legitimate-looking “official Wells Fargo number.” The “Wells Fargo representative” played the hero, telling her that her debit cards and personal details had been hacked.
The fraudster told the woman that she must hand over her debit cards to a courier, but not to tell anybody.
“This guy just blew me away. He knew it. He really knew what he was doing,” she told Ridesharing Forum, or maybe she’s still at the hypnotized stage at this time.
Thankfully, while on the verge of following the commands of the fraudster, an Uber driver appeared in the area. He was looking for a passenger, he told the Ridesharing Forum team.
The woman, unfazed and willing to follow the scammer’s orders, asked if the Uber driver was the courier, and he told her the truth, that he was just an Uber driver.
The Uber driver knew what he was doing, and asked her if she was trying to follow instructions.
She told him, “I can’t speak to you about this. I have some kind of confidentiality that I have to follow.”
That time, the woman herself wanted to get out of this.
So cool that the Uber driver was a former police officer, and quickly recognized signs that the woman was, indeed, being scammed.
“So I was like, that’s a scam. I said, ‘Don’t do it.’ And she kind of stopped. She handed me the phone, and I heard a click. I heard a noise. And I said, ‘It’s dead,’” the Uber driver narrated.
The 90-year-old lady was thankful to the Uber driver, remarking that she thinks “the good Lord sent him there just to” stop her from doing whatever she is to do.
Call scams are literally everywhere. In the past, they can be easily recognized since the numbers appear as personal phone numbers, but today, numbers and emails look as if they are from the companies officially themselves.
Healthcare workers and psychologists say simply following your gut instincts is enough to help prevent being scammed. For more ridesharing-related news, why don’t you open your account here on the Ridesharing Forum website?