Unfortunately, people are getting more creative with the scams they come up with. As technology advances, those with bad intentions keep finding new ways to make their lies sound believable. A Utah woman recently shared how she almost fell victim to a terrifying scam before realizing what was really happening.
She explained that she was at work when she suddenly saw her mom’s phone number calling her. When she picked up, all she could hear was her mother sobbing uncontrollably. Naturally, her first thought was that something horrible had happened, maybe even that someone had died.
Seconds later, the crying stopped, and a man’s voice came on the line. He claimed he was calling because her mom had told him to, immediately making the situation even more alarming.
So far, the Utah woman still didn’t think she was dealing with a scam. She assumed the man might be a doctor or someone helping her mother. He asked if she was in a quiet place and said something about the cops. That made her believe there might have been a car accident and that her mom told officers to call her.
But she also felt something wasn’t adding up because they don’t even live in the same city, so why would her mom involve local police where she lived? Before she could sort through the confusion, the man said something that made everything click. He wasn’t telling her to call the cops… he was telling her not to. Then came the chilling line: he said he would kill her mother and that he needed something from her.
The moment he issued the threat, she hung up. She was almost certain it had to be fake, but the part that unsettled her was the call appearing to come directly from her mom’s number, complete with her contact name and photo.
Thankfully, when she immediately called her mom back, her mother answered and was completely fine. Once the woman realized it had all been a horrifying scam, she said she spent the next 30 minutes shaking. Even if you figure it out in the end, going through something like that is traumatizing.
At the end of her video, she asked viewers what she could do to prevent anything like this from happening again.
People Reacting to the Utah Woman’s Story
A lot of people found what happened to the Utah woman to be quite scary. No one would want to hear someone threatening to kill their loved ones. Since this was a serious situation, one person wrote, “Contact the law. They need to know.” This made others say that it is a well-known scam and that the police can’t do anything about it. Not everyone might know about it, though, which made another person say, “That’s actually scary for somebody who doesn’t realize it’s a scam.” One woman agreed as she added, “So that’s [expletive] terrifying.” Another woman commented on how people would do this instead of just finding a job. “People will do ANYTHING but get a job,” she said.
Some people stepped in to offer advice to the Utah woman on what she could do next. One TikTok user suggested creating a safety system, writing, “Alright, it’s time to make a family code word. Thank you for sharing!” It turns out many families already do this, as another woman commented, “My mom and I have a code word for this‼”
Someone else pointed out exactly what this scam was, explaining, “Yeah, it’s called caller ID spoofing. I work for a phone company and unfortunately this happens all the time and there’s not a lot you can do.” Others shared that similar scams had almost happened to them as well. Sadly, many said police usually respond by saying there isn’t much they can do about it.
Hopefully, more people become aware of these tactics so no one ends up falling for them.
