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Phishing robocall $100 bonus

Yesterday and today I have received robo-calls on my mobile phone that show up with caller ID as 800-922-2222. The recording says that Verizon Wireless wants to give me $100 off my next phone bill and to go to www.mybonus100.com to sign up for my $100 credit. The web site there is a rip-off of the www.verizonwireless.com site complete with a sign-in area asking for verizonwireless log in credentials. I'm not sure if this forum is the best way to bring this to the attention of vzw or not, but someone needs to take this site down before some poor sucker tries to collect their $100.

Here's a screenshot of the mybonus100.com site. You have to look at the URL in the address bar to tell that it isn't the verizonwireless site, and if you just got a call purporting to be from verizon telling you to log into that site you might think that's ok. A whois lookup of the mybonus100.com domain name shows that it was only registered yesterday, 5 May 2013, the same day I got the first call.

Thanks

- John

Comments

ssmaupin

I just received this exact same call. I was skeptical and carefully looked over the http://www.mybonus100.com/ page. First clue something was not right is the URL has nothing to do with Verizon but the page is a total replica of the verizonwireless.com page. Second the field that asks for your User ID or Cell Phone Number does not allow input. The only field that allows input is the password field. Needless to say I did not input that information but immediately searched "mybonus100.com scam" and found your entry. Thank you for posting.

VKDS

Just got the same call.

spitxfire

That's pretty legit looking, more people definitely need to know about this.

unknown

That's been around for a while or others trying the same thing.

santafemichael

EVERYONE should call 611 from your cell phone and complain . Ask for the number to be blocked and that they need to nip this quick!!

This is fraud and they are attempting to obtain Verizon client's access information.

I am on the telephone with them now.

unknown

I'm not sure how Verizon could block this. Maybe they can, IDK.

santafemichael

I just called and had the number blocked from my telephone. I am now on hold with the fraud department.

unknown

Yes, anyone can block it on their own phone, but I'm not aware that Verizon can block it for everyone.

taperpowell

Yesterday, (5/6) I got the same call everyone else on this string got. Today, 5/7, I got a call from the same number, 1-800-922-2222, but this time the automated voice told me to go to a slightly different website, mybonus115.com, and offered me $115 off my bill (instead of just $100, like yesterday). Has anyone else besides me received this most recent variation? Like others here, I reported the mybonus100.com yesterday, but I haven't called Verizon yet to tell them about the mybonus115 call today. (What comes tomorrow? mybonus130??)

santafemichael

I haven't received any more calls since I had the number blocked by Verizon.

SuzyQ

If nothing else, the website itself is fraudulent, and Verizon can sue for copyright infringement - if they can track down whoever registered the domain and is hosting the website.

ssmaupin

I got the same $115 off my bill call today as well. Also the $100 off one yesterday, both from the same 1-800-922-2222 number. I sure wish these people doing this put as much effort in getting a real job as they do in trying to run a scam.

SuzyQ

Looks like the bonus100 site is gone, but mybonus115.com took it's place. Ugh.

jonnyb518

they changed their scheme now it is 115 so www.mybonus115.com the page is down when i checked but who knows when it will be up. where are they getting phone numbers from? How did they know i was a verizon customer?

astrobrewer

I got another call from 800-922-2222 this morning and answered it before I saw the number. I hung up as soon as I heard that it was about Verizon wanting to give me money, so I don't know if it was from the 100 or the 115 folks. But it sounded like the same recording. That's 3 calls in 3 days. I blocked the number on all my phones. I hope that's the last I hear from them.

It does look like someone is trying to stop these guys. The whois lookup of www.mybonus100.com now shows that the domain name is available. www.mybonus115.com is registered to someone in the Dominican Republic on 5/6 but the whois lookup says "Status: Locked."

wake-up-verizon

Sorry to admit it but I fell for the scam. Four days later 4 smart phones on my account were deactivated and reactivated on other cells that immediately started making calls to Jamaica and Cuba. We never got an email from Verizon about the changes. When my daughter called at 9:30 that morning, the customer service simply deactivated the new phone and reactivated hers. There was no connection to the fraud department, no red flag, and no investigation, until that afternoon when my husband and I went to a Verizon store with our phones that didn't work. Then all of a sudden, the fraud department was right on top of it. Right! I asked to speak to them after everything was taken care of. But, after being on hold for about an hour, they closed. Guess fraud only happens during office hours.

Maybe 911 should only be open during office hours and take an hour on hold to contact.

In the days that followed, after hours of being on hold and talking to one person after another, I finally spoke to a person in the fraud department who was well aware of the whole scam. She explained that once on your own account's site, all that is needed for a new phone to be activated on an existing number is a few clicks of a mouse, not even the password you have to give Verizon to talk to them!

I asked her how difficult would it be to simply require a text of a security code or email to finalize the transaction. Banks do the same thing if you are using an unrecognized computer. She didn’t think much of the idea and started in about cloned phones. It didn’t make a lick of sense.

From my Google search I see these scams have been going on with Verizon for years. But don’t worry. She told me they have a committee working on it. Now that inspired some new confidence!

WOW!! THANK YOU VERIZON SECURITY!!!

Any bets on how many thousands will fall victim before Verizon gets their act together?

Ann154

Maybe a little research could have saved you a lot of grief.

unknown

wake-up-verizon wrote:
Sorry to admit it but I fell for the scam. Four days later 4 smart phones on my account were deactivated and reactivated on other cells that immediately started making calls to Jamaica and Cuba. We never got an email from Verizon about the changes.

Did it ever a occur to you the scammers changed the e-mail address so you wouldn't get one? Also no need for the large text. Seriously what was the point other than to be irritating and look foolish?

Also you didn't think the website name was a HUGE clue as to it being a rip off? I amazed in 2013 this stuff still happens.

unknown

jonnyb518 wrote:
they changed their scheme now it is 115 so www.mybonus115.com the page is down when i checked but who knows when it will be up. where are they getting phone numbers from? How did they know i was a verizon customer?

From your phone number.

unknown

Hundreds of thousands. You see like the telephone spammers they are using a robo dialer which is against the law and why would that surprise you.

With these dialers the process calls or sends texts to numbers in sequential order. Lets say in area code 505 the dialer uses 505-101-**** and so on. Then they get a load of suckers looking for a quick cash day, the people get a bogus website that looks and feels like the original and the poor sucker enters their account name or number and password of course that info is sent to the domain as a sendto=entertheredirectpageurlhere then the scam site can do as it wishes.

The bogus domains are normally out of this country but the domain registry agency can be contacted and have the scam site taken down. Internic should be contacted to get these sites from operating. Domain registry is so easy to do, and all a scammer has to do is pay a small fee and hope enough suckers bite and make it worth their while.

Sad but so true.

tromboness

>> Duplicate post deleted per the ToS

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Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

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