I gave a scammer my telephone number, address, and name. How bad is it?

Question

Updated question because old one was embarassing:
I saw a spam email from "PayPal" and I didn't realize that it was a phishing attempt. I gave the phishing site my name, telephone number, and email. What could he do with them?

Old question:
Well, I saw a spam email, but I didn't realize that it's really a scam at first. I gave him my telephone number, address, and name. What would he do with them? Could he ruin ALL of my reputation with it?

Ben Miller - Remember Monica · Accepted Answer

Your name, address, and telephone number are all more or less public information.  Think about it: how many people do you give this information to every month?  If this is the only information you gave out, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Of course, from now on, be more aware before you start handing out information.  Just this week, I heard from a friend that his relative had fallen for the Grandparent scam and had lost several thousand dollars.  A couple of months ago, a relative of mine had fallen for the Windows Tech Support scam, and it took me some time to clean up his computer.  I get calls at my house every day from Windows Tech Support or from Rachel with Cardholder Services and I hang up without thinking about it, but people fall for this every day.

You need to treat every phone call and e-mail you get with suspicion.

FolksLord · Answer

The worst thing that can happen is that you've just made your e-mail and phone number useless, and you must get new. That can happen, if you have the bad luck to have an e-mail provider that has poor spam filters, and a country that is not interested in protecting your privacy from criminals.
For example, Gmail excludes spam quite well, and Germany has good laws that punish phone spammers, so they won't risk calling you without reason. But in Poland, there's no effective protection from phone criminals, so once your number gets sold, you'll receive so many junk calls, you'll want to throw your phone away.
No, they can't ruin your reputation with that information. But they can ruin your nerves with unsolicited mails and calls.

I gave a scammer my telephone number, address, and name. How bad is it?

2 Answers

Add your own answers!

Ask a Question