Some Background

I recently signed up for AT&T fiber internet. There were three “limited time offer!” bonus deals that I was able to snag, the reward for which were prepaid debit cards of varying amounts: $250, $100, and $50. Within about two weeks, I’d received the $250 and $50 cards, but not the $100 one.

Eventually, I figured out that I wasn’t going to be getting that reward. What had happened is that I picked out the plan, added it to my shopping cart, was notified that I’d be getting those three deals… and then I didn’t actually complete the purchase until a week or so later, after the $100 deal had expired, but the expiration was not reflected in my shopping cart.

I’m not entirely surprised that the programmers responsible for the website missed that edge case – I can’t imagine that what I did was very common. I am surprised that the deals I did get were not actually listed on the invoice or displayed anywhere else that I could find.

Regardless, this story is not about AT&T’s subpar customer experience. This story is about how I was almost scammed out of that $250, and it was such a good scam that I’m still not 100% certain it was a scam.

The Scam(?)

About a week after receiving the two prepaid debit cards, and still under the misapprehension that I was owed a third, I received a text message. The following is an exact transcript of the conversation:

Him: Hey this is David am texting you from AT&T. AT&T mailed you 3 visa rewards worth of $250+$50+$200 for account XXXXXXXXX! So we just want to confirm with you have you received it or not. For more guidance please contact on same number. Thank you

Me: I have received only two of them, the $250 and $50 ones. I never received an email about the third one, either.

Him: Sorry for inconvenience let me double check your account

I just double checked your account and according to your account you only claimed 2 rewards and third reward has been expired already because you didn’t claim it . But don’t worry let me check what I can do for you

Can I call you for further assistance

Me: Sure, go ahead

So, a few things stand out from this conversation.

• surprisingly good customer service – what corporation has ever reached out to you to inform you that they owe you money?
• 808 area code, which is for Honolulu
• In the first text, he gave me my actual account number
• He claims that I was owed a $200 gift card
  • As mentioned above, at the time I thought I was owed a $100 gift card, but actually was not owed anything
• Although there was an expiration date on claiming the cards, it was something like two months, not the three weeks that had actually passed
• Not the best grammar

He called me, and the first red flag is that Google marked it as a suspected spam caller. Not a great start, but I have seen false positives before.

During the phone call, for verification he gave me my account number again and my email. He says instead of sending out a new card, he’ll just add the $200 to the $250 card I already have. He asks for the last eight digits of that card for verification.

The thing is, both of the cards I had shared the same first eight digits, and I suspect that’s true for most cards.

At this point I started getting flashbacks to all the Jim Browning videos I’ve seen, so I said thanks but no thanks, I’ll call support directly. I hung up, looked up the support number, called, and found out that they were closed on weekends.

When I did talk to a support person the following week, they said there was no sign that I was owed a third card, and I came to the conclusion outlined above.

Verdict

I’m 99.9% sure it was a scam. Looking all the evidence, it’s all just so suspicious.

And yet… and yet, he had my account number. He had my email. He knew I’d just gotten two reward cards. How?

Well, AT&T is a big company, and basic information like that probably isn’t well secured. After all, the real support people have to have access to all that as well. So is it really that unlikely that someone is selling information to scammers?

But maybe my paranoia made lose out on a free $200 gift card. I doubt I’ll ever know for sure.