09/26/2025
In Which I "Tell one on myself"
In my book I tell a story about almost being scammed out of a lot of money, which was only stopped by Wal-Mart's refusal to issue an international wire transfer without proper verification (which, of course, the scammer could not provide.) Well, it happened again!
Still in the "almost" category, thank to the help of an astute bank officer at Vantage Credit Union.
It started with a fake text message, purportedly from PayPal. Now, I get a lot of these in one from or another. When I do, I check my credit union account tied to my PayPal account, and if neither one shows a withdrawal, I ignore it. This particular scam started with transaction receipts showing a purchase of Bitcoin (which I do not trade in) with a phone number to call in case it is wrong. Well, I ignored the first such message, called about the second but got a busy signal, so did nothing else. On the third message in 2 days I called again and got someone.
With this chap on the line, I looked up the transaction number and the $$ equivalent of the Bitcoin, and he said he would start the process of a refund. He transferred me to another guy who sent me what looked like a legitimate PayPal claim for refund. The only problem was that I had not seen any withdrawal from either my credit union account or my PayPal account. He handled that by saying it was a "shadow transaction" that I couldn't see yet because it was too recent. Now, I'd never heard of such a thing; but I'd never been in the operations side of a bank taking deposits or other transfers, so I thought well, maybe that was so. And so I hit "submit" on the form, as he told me to do.
Side note: Unlike my previous scam experience (which had to do with supposed repair to my computer), they did not ask for remote access, nor did they ask for access to my account-- though they knew about it, as it was listed in PayPal.
They DID ask me how much was in my checking account, and I should have told them "none of your business," but I did tell them (what was I thinking with that?)
Next thing I knew I was getting a text saying that a deposit had been made to my account for roughly DOUBLE the amount I had told them was there, and much more that the refund would have been. Again, I didn't see it in my account, which he explained as another "shadow" transaction. I said "well, that must be a mistake" and he agreed, "Oh, yes it was. Things like that happen."
In order to correct this "error" he said I would have to wire them back half of it (which was, approximately the new balance in my account, myself having added an amount close to the refund by transfer from savings.) So, the other half of the new deposit would remain in the account, and then the refund would be added. He also threw in that if I did not send the money back I would have to pay taxes on it. Yeah, no fooling (I'm a tax preparer. I would deal with that if/when I got a 1099 statement reporting it.)
I was very suspicious but still hooked at this point. I was working remotely and could not wire any funds that way, so they said I would have to go to the bank. He provided the wire address (domestic, not foreign, to avoid an obvious red flag) and I went to the credit union. (Also unlike the previous scam, he did not insist on my keeping him on the phone while I did, just asked for a call back afterwards.)
So I went, and that saved my bacon. First of all, they only allow wiring of funds requests in person or over the phone, and that's a very good thing. Secondly, there's no such thing as a "Shadow transaction" so they knew this was phony from the start. Thirdly, the phone number on the text was not for PayPal. (I do cut myself a little slack on this one because PayPal has many possible contact numbers, and how to keep track of that when you don't call often? And there's not much personal service with companies like this anyway. When I called later to report the scam it was all automated--never did talk to a human.) They checked my account again there, and the balances were the same as I'd seen at home.
Bottom line: The whole thing was a scam, and I didn't need to do anything except not deal with these people again.
What I realized "after the fact." 1) had that wire gone through, it would have taken EVERYTHING from my checking account and they would not have replaced it. 2) That "mistaken" deposit was no mistake at all. In fact, in the previous scam, they had done a similar thing-- putting in too much money and wanting it wired back-- but since several years had passed I didn't remember that in time.
P.S. The guy called back just after I left, and I answered him. "I'm on my way back from the bank and you're not getting anything!" Hung up, and he didn't call again, thanks be.
P.P.S. When I checked my text messages,there was already another one about a phony Bitcoin transaction, sent while I had been on the phone with them! They can be relentless if you don't call them out.
Lessons (for everyone); Verify everything. If it doesn't show up as a transaction, it's probably phony. Do not give information out-- -not only the obvious things such as SSNs and bank account numbers, but even what might seem to be innocuous things if you don't know who you're talking to. As they say, even smart people can get scammed- in fact, that's what they count on!
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Next post: the tax provisions in the "Big beautiful bill" that apply to those of us who are not billionaires.
