It started with a phone message received a week or so ago. It was from a friend, Matt, asking for a call back.
I called him, and we chatted. Not long afterwards, the phone rang, and Matt again left a very similar message. I didn’t realize at the time that it was the exact same message. This time I didn’t get back to him. But when we saw him one night for dinner, Meda apologized for our failure to respond. He later said he had been puzzled. He says he didn’t call us or leave a message.
Fast forward. There have been several more of these messsages. Always the same. I’ve learned that first there is a call that rings twice and then is dropped before going to voicemail. This is followed, maybe 5-10 minutes later, by the call that ends in the same message being left.
The calls are coming to our Hawaiian Tel landline, not my cell, which Matt would normally call.
The answering machine says they are from a number starting with 808-427-xxxx. It is not Matt’s phone number.
We’ve now talked about it at length. Matt is not calling and leaving messages. I think the message sounds like him, but he disagrees.
He’s reminded of those scam calls where a call is received from a family member who says he/she has been arrested, or been in an accident, or for some other reason needs assistance in the form of money. But the message doesn’t include a call-back number, so if it’s meant to be that kind of scam, it’s by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
Now we’re waiting and hoping for another call. After the two-ring hang-up, I intend to answer before it gets sent to voicemail and see who or what is waiting on the other end.
We’ve now received the same message about five times over the past week or two.
[It seems there’s a problem trying to play an .mp4a audio file via WordPress, which I use for this blog. So far, nothing I’ve tried appears to have worked. Hopefully I’ll figure out a way so that you can hear the simple, repeated message.]
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What is the phone number? You should be able to trace it. If you can’t, I think I can
Only thought that comes to mind is someone may be calling your landline to try to ascertain if you are home, possibly to attempt a robbery? During the Holidays, homes are flush with new stuff and cash.
Then the question becomes how they managed to create a sound-alike message, or get ahold of an earlier message that Matt left us? Somehow two rings, a break, then the recorded message in a separate call seems king of a fingerprint that someone might recognize.
My kid tells me that with AI, hackers have amazing power to create fakes – audio & video. Also, we just got warned at work about Hawaii being targeted by hackers as we speak. Our servers have received over 10,000 attempted password break ins over the past several days. Scary stuff!
I hope you or your friend Steve can trace the number… In any case – it really seems like a scam of some kind – beware!
I don’t answer calls any longer. My closed caption answering machine identifies spam calls.
After many decades, I finally had our home’s land line cancelled last month. Good riddance.
A scammer sends out 1M calls purporting to be from ‘Matt’ and needing help.
95% of the 1M don’t know anybody named ‘Matt’ so they disregard.
The other 5% do know somebody named ‘Matt’ so they think it might be real.
20,000 potential ‘marks’ for ‘Matt’ the scammer.
50,000 potential marks …
Yes, it would be 50,000, but 30,000 of those who know someone named Matt don’t want to talk to him.
Best chuckle of the morning! ;o)
Just convert the .mp4a file to an .mp3 file to post to WordPress. Search for any website that can do the conversion for free on the web online.