This has to be a scam

[Por_sha911]

Oldtimers like me have a card that they no long use.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Oldtimers like me have a card that they no long use.

I still have one like that, bearing what was my grade school signature. I keep it in a safe...only mine must be even earlier. It reads "for social security purposes only-not for identification".

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Oldtimers like me have a card that they no long use.

Mine looks like that. I am so old, the number is a single digit.

[A930Rocket]

Four kids in our family and all of ours are sequential as well.

Edit: back at university in the early 80s, I had a professor that could tell where you were born by the first three digits of your Social Security number. Going around the classroom, he told me I was born in Connecticut, I said no, I was born in Alabama. Apparently my parents did not get Social Security numbers for us until after three or four years for me. Longer for my older brother and sister.

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I learned my SSN as a kid. I have never ever carried the actual card. It is in my safe, with the original staple in the corner of the larger card, and it has never been cut off. As a kid I always had my Air Force issued ID card as a form of ID. My brother's SSN is just one number different than mine. Our are sequential numbers.

[JackDidley]

Well, I guess the letter was actually from Barclays. I got another letter saying I was barred from any activity with the card until I send them my information. Aint going to happen. I get better perks with my other cards anyway. I still can not believe they expect me to give up all that info.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Well, I guess the letter was actually from Barclays. I got another letter saying I was barred from any activity with the card until I send them my information. Aint going to happen. I get better perks with my other cards anyway. I still can not believe they expect me to give up all that info.

I'd call them up and tell them to close the account.

WHen I saw your original post, it didn't click that you got physical mail, mail delivered by the USPS, right? "A letter" to me means something that the post office delivered? That would be hugely ballsy for scammers. Email scamming is one thing, but scamming through the USPS will, if you get caught, put you in the federal pound me in the @ß prison.

If it's email, then it's still a bit more sophisticated than usual. Send the first email, folks ignore it. Send the second email and I'd bet that it would scare a bunch of folks that were on the line into sending the info.

It's a shame that you can't do what they used to do in the movies, back nuke the connections whether it be stealing from the scammers, melting their computers, frying their brains. That would be awesome!

[Crowbob]

Mine is so old it’s cuneiform on papyrus.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'd call them up and tell them to close the account.

WHen I saw your original post, it didn't click that you got physical mail, mail delivered by the USPS, right? "A letter" to me means something that the post office delivered? That would be hugely ballsy for scammers. Email scamming is one thing, but scamming through the USPS will, if you get caught, put you in the federal pound me in the @ß prison.

If it's email, then it's still a bit more sophisticated than usual. Send the first email, folks ignore it. Send the second email and I'd bet that it would scare a bunch of folks that were on the line into sending the info.

It's a shame that you can't do what they used to do in the movies, back nuke the connections whether it be stealing from the scammers, melting their computers, frying their brains. That would be awesome!

Yea it came U.S.P.S I am still not sure it is real, I went to my account page and it still said nothing about the card being locked and it still said my credit score is 800. I may actually try to use the card tomorrow and see what happens.

[cstreit]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

I would never send a copy of my SS card to anyone ever, or even send the number. If you have a card, they already know who you are, and your SSN and a full credit history on you.

Well I might as well give it to damned near everyone at this point - because after several ID thefts and someone filing my taxes for me TWICE - apparently my SSN is a matter of publiv record in the criminal world.

[id10t]

Originally Posted by A930Rocket

Four kids in our family and all of ours are sequential as well.

Edit: back at university in the early 80s, I had a professor that could tell where you were born by the first three digits of your Social Security number. Going around the classroom, he told me I was born in Connecticut, I said no, I was born in Alabama. Apparently my parents did not get Social Security numbers for us until after three or four years for me. Longer for my older brother and sister.

I used to have the list memorized, patients at the hospital I worked had their SSN on their arm bands, was a great way to put a smile on someones face as you push 'em down to the radiology department or wherever.

The 700 prefix used to be reserved for the Railroad Retirement Society since that pre-dated SS

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by masraum

It's not their nerve. It's a fairly sophisticated scheme that's the result of lots of trial and error. If they make the pitch really sophisticated, they'll hook a lot of fish. If they hook a lot of fish, then they have to spend a lot of time and effort reeling in all of those fish. They'll lose a lot of those fish after wasting a bunch of time. If they make it just realistic enough to fool the not very savvy fish, they hook those fish and the fish practically jump into the boat for them with minimal effort. So the reward/effort is much higher.

They intentionally make them like they do, not very good, mistakes, etc... so they weed out the average and smart people and only hook not so savvy folks because that's where the highest profit margins are.

Yup, they are filtering for the most gullible, low hanging fruit.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Yup, they are filtering for the most gullible, low hanging fruit.

The very young and the very old are the most easy targets. Damn, I am getting old........

[450knotOffice]

Honestly, instead of this giant mystery, why not just call the number on the back of one of your cards? My guess is they’ll say no, you’re being scammed - ignore the letter. MAYBE they’ll say, yep that’s us. We need this info, to which you can then say, nope, cancel the cards.

Done. Five minutes.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

Honestly, instead of this giant mystery, why not just call the number on the back of one of your cards? My guess is they’ll say no, you’re being scammed - ignore the letter. MAYBE they’ll say, yep that’s us. We need this info, to which you can then say, nope, cancel the cards.

Done. Five minutes.

I thought it was a done deal and forgot about it. Now I get this second letter. I will find out tomorrow.

[Zeke]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Well, I guess the letter was actually from Barclays. I got another letter saying I was barred from any activity with the card until I send them my information. Aint going to happen. I get better perks with my other cards anyway. I still can not believe they expect me to give up all that info.

Paypal wanted almost the same from me. I ignored them and my account is locked, No money there so they can spend the rest of time spending ones and zeros asking.

No way in hell. If CC does that I'll just go to Venmo from a account that I'll keep just the amount I'm sending (at another bank).

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Oldtimers like me have a card that they no long use.

I still have one like that. They sent two cards printed on a larger card, perforated so you could separate them. I punched out one of the cards and lost it decades ago, the other card is still attached to the original card. It's in my safe deposit box.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Por_sha911

Oldtimers like me have a card that they no long use.

I've got my original card from the early 70s. It looks similar to that. I'm not sure if it's exactly the same or not. I haven't looked at it in a while. I used to carry it in my wallet, but stopped.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by 450knotOffice

Honestly, instead of this giant mystery, why not just call the number on the back of one of your cards? My guess is they’ll say no, you’re being scammed - ignore the letter. MAYBE they’ll say, yep that’s us. We need this info, to which you can then say, nope, cancel the cards.

Done. Five minutes.

Well, I contacted Barclays . They said the letter is real . I guess they can lock the account because I am not sending all that out.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by JackDidley

Well, I contacted Barclays . They said the letter is real . I guess they can lock the account because I am not sending all that out.

Yep...that's when I'd pay off any balance and close the account. Actually, just did that with a Citibank AT&T universal card. They wanted us to sign up for early online payments, and would send the snail mail billing in a time span that allowed them to impose a late fee despite us mailing a payment the day after getting the bill. We're down to a VISA card issued by our local bank and a Chevron gas card.

Most purchases we just use cash these days. Pretty hard for a fraudster to hack cash.

[JackDidley]

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Yep...that's when I'd pay off any balance and close the account. Actually, just did that with a Citibank AT&T universal card. They wanted us to sign up for early online payments, and would send the snail mail billing in a time span that allowed them to impose a late fee despite us mailing a payment the day after getting the bill. We're down to a VISA card issued by our local bank and a Chevron gas card.

Most purchases we just use cash these days. Pretty hard for a fraudster to hack cash.

No balance to pay. In fact they owe me $18.50 cash back but they wont give out less than $25. I guess I can take the loss on that.
My Sams credit cars has the best cash back and I will keep using that. I have a Capital One card for on line stuff.