Scammers would often go to great lengths just to fool their victims, but one of them lied a little too ridiculously to a person from Virginia, and the victim saw through the lie right away. Apparently, the modus operandi now consists of accusing you of terrorism by saying a Chinese national is buying firearms in your name.
The information and online public service announcement came from a Reddit post in r/Scams. Reddit user SuzukiSandy22a received a call from someone pretending to be an HSBC representative. Apparently, HSBC asked the Redditor about their recent purchase of $9,000 worth of firearms, which can be classified as terrorism and is supposedly enough to freeze the owner’s account.
Surprisingly enough, HSBC was kind and connected enough to transfer the Redditor to Fairfax Police and to an “Officer Diaz” who then offered to help the bank owner to clear their name. A few calls from “headquarters” later, courtesy of “Officer Diaz,” the “police” told the Redditor that they have a Chase bank account being used for laundering $2.3 million and that a Chinese national accused them of selling their data for $10,000.
This Chinese national then presumably used the Redditor’s name to purchase $9,000 worth of firearms, causing HSBC to flag the Redditor’s account for terrorism. Here’s the full post:
Of course, Reddit user SuzukiSandy22a caught on quickly right after the Chinese national story, which they admitted made them burst out laughing at their attempt to scam. By then, “Officer Diaz” on the phone was notably annoyed at the Redditor and even asked, “Is this funny to you?”. Sadly, SuzukiSandy22a never followed up with what happened and how the scammers hung up.
Other Versions of the Scam
The goal of the scammers, presumably, would be to extract personal account information from the user or, at most, some shady or emergency bank transfers, especially from panicked victims. Turns out the scam is quite rampant and ramped up in numbers this year, often taking advantage of homeland security and Chinese spy paranoia.
One of the more convincing versions of the scam call involved fake Chinese police asking for money to help victims clear their name from the identity theft incident. The scammers have since become more brazen and more elaborate with different versions of the same lie.
It’s just that the Reddit user SuzukiSandy22a’s account of the attempted scam got a little too absurd to be ridiculous, that even other Redditors chimed in on how the scammers might as well out themselves with how absurd their story is. Some have given tips on how to toy with the scammers.
“I would have hung up at ‘$9000 in firearms’ 😂,” suggested Redditor Spectrig
“They also don’t like answering questions. They follow a script,” advises Redditor psilocybin6ix
“Also ‘HSBC’ forwards you on to the ‘police’? In no world would a bank forward you to them,” points out Redditor Elmie
