Someone with Sprint access and knowledge on some scam ish!

[Russellhi]

I should have known better but someone got over on me today!! I'm not going to make the claim that this was a sprint employee.. but this person DID have access to sprint info..

I had been going back and fourth with ecare about a replacement phone. I logged on to my sprint account, found the link to email them and they approved a replacement phone with no problem. They told me to visit a store, I couldn't do that so they told me to call telesales for the exchange. Called telesales, they offered to sell me a phone but said they couldn't replace it.. no thanks. I asked them to verify that I had been approved via email, they saw the email but couldn't/ wouldn't help. SO I emailed ecare again (I replied to the original email) to let them know what happened and asked them to have someone with knowledge of the situation call.. someone sure did!

Maybe 15 minutes after sending the reply email I got a call from 817-323-3639. Not even thinking that this wasn't an 800/888 number the guy on the line says he's with sprint (a supervisor) he said he understands I'm having issues.. and says he will try to help. He described what I mentioned in the email. He walks me through the exchange policy and says he will give me a replacement, and for 50 dollars plus tax and I can choose a different model.. so I said sure! This guy had knowledge of different sprint phones and (his version) of the exchange policy, he sounded like a legit spint employee, I thought. I've spoken with enough sprint reps to think I know one from a random person. I give him my cc number then my bank name (should have been a red flag when he asked for that) for payment (big mistake). He takes my billing info, ect and gives me an order number and says he can email me the details.. sure. I never got the email.

He says I will probably get a call from order support to verify the charge. After our conversation he "transfers me" (thinking back, this must have been the mute button/ to be placed on hold) to someone else that verified my shipping info, card number and asks for the last of my social or my license number. This should have been enough of a red flag for me to hang up, but with my mind on a new phone, I didn't. I gave him my license number, big mistake again.

Soon after the call I checked my bank account.. I see a charge in the exact amount I was told would be charged and it was listed as PAPA JOHNS 1308.COM. My account showed that someone made a money transfer via phone from my linked savings account to that account!! So I'm think wtf!?! I called my bank and and started the dispute process, then went to the bank to finish the process. Luckily I was able to get all that resolved.. BUT they told me no one should have been able to call and make that transfer without my ss number, I did not give this out. So I don't know if they were able to talk a bank rep into it based on the info they had or if they were able to access my ss on sprints system (if this was a sprint employee).

I called the 817 number back I originally received the call from and and a different guy answers after two rings "hello thank you for calling sprint" I've never spoke with anyone from sprint that quickly! I called back 20 minutes later and a woman answers saying it's sprint.. sounds like this is what they do. I called a legit sprint number, gave a supervisor the details and he calls the number and it's disconnected. I tried the number again and it's been shut down and is listed as an out of service number.

Hopefully they aren't able to do more with the info they have!? I closed my bank accounts checked my credit info (it is ok, so far) and I put a fraud alert on my credit just in case they were able to get my social.

I pulled the whois info on the 1308.com site and it comes up as uk site registered in 1999. My bank couldn't get the details of the merchant that billed my card.. until it posts, thats next. I'm guessing they used the site as a bs name, but hopefully we'll find out. I emailed everyone at sprint I could.. sprint corp/ ecare, ect the details on what happened. I also emailed the domain admin this site is listed with. I won't get into details into everyone I've contacted but I damn sure am doing my part to cover all ends.

It's frustrating because I feel like this is the waiting game at this point.. but hopefully once I find out on sprints end if they keep records of employees that access email in there system I'll be able to get more info.

The good side of this is I was only charged around 50 bucks and my bank says they will give that back. But this could have been a lot worse if I hadn't checked my account and shut it all down.

UPDATE..
As I was typing this I got a call from the fraud dept in response to one of my emails to sprint. I hesitated to even believe this call was legit so I went through the steps of making sure and ended up going to a sprint store while on the phone so we could both verify each other.

As I'm on the phone with the fraud rep (very helpful person!) he tells me that changes were made to my account earlier and more were being made as we spoke. The person who had my info called sprint, said they were a manager at a store in a different state and gave a bs account # and passed verification. This guy talked a sprint rep into giving him access to my account and making changes! The fraud dept rep called a new number that was activated (this was one of the chages) and the guy answers, says hes me and had issues earlier but everything was resolved now, unbelievable.

Not to make a longer story longer, the fraud rep killed the esn of the phone that was activated and did a few things to my account, I won't go into details but it sounds like it will be enough to stop things on sprints end from changing anything else. Even if it wasn't they are aware of the situation and said I wouldn't be responsible for anything out of the norm. I asked the fraud rep about the persons knowledge of the ecare email and he sounded concerned by this, apparently these are handled overseas. I couldn't get much from him about this but it didn't sound like a store employee should have access to the email, but someone, somehow with knowledge of sprint customer service and process did.

The fraud rep looked into things and gave me a few minor updates on what he think may be going on & from where. I'll leave that out. But I get the feel they are going to investigate it in full on there end. I know I will.

This has been something else today!

[Dr.8820]

damn...

[horndoctor]

Sounds like you had a fun day.

[Russellhi]

yeah, I thought I had it all just about taken care of when I left the bank.. It's not a good feeling when your on the phone with someone and they tell you they just talked to someone else saying they are you! I'll give it to the fraud dept for going all in. I got a much better feel after that convo then I did when I talked to the cs supervisor.

[lgrulz]

You should be excited next months sprint bill will be $74,990!!!

[MordyT]

Sprint better make this up to you...in the form of some free phones/service.

This is not cool.

[Russellhi]

Originally Posted by MordyT

Sprint better make this up to you...in the form of some free phones/service.

This is not cool.

Yeah that would be nice. To be honest I've been so caught up in making sure all ends got tied up that I never asked. I just wanted/ want it over.

Small update,
I found out that the merchant that billed my account actually was Papa Johns. These fools ordered pizzas a couple times that day to the same address from my card and another! I spoke with the fraud guy at sprint again, he wouldn't give me much but there has been progress on their end.

Mods, I realized I posted this in the wrong forum.. It was a long day!

[SporkLover]

Rule #1..... never give out that personal info over the phone. If you get a weird call like that... you always say let me call back the main number.

I also never give out my CC info over the phone

[Flipper]

With all the information on the internet and tech enthusiasts who ALSO happen to be crooks, it isn't that difficult to become familiar with some customer service process of a major telecommunications company to dupe someone into believing a call like that is legit. In other words, I don't think it's highly unlikely that a Sprint employee WASN'T involved either. I wonder if you have something like a Trojan reading your emails and it filters certain words like 'account change', 'order', 'sprint' - something that will alert these guys when they think they've found someone that will be an easy target since they're likely familiar with Sprint's procedures....

But thanks for the post. Makes me extremely weary of ANY calls asking information like that....