What kind of scam did someone claiming to be from UPS attempt?

Question

I received a phone call early yesterday morning from an unknown number. I answered it and someone asked "Is this bitmaker?" (they had my real first name). I said yes, and then they said they were from UPS, and that's all the information they needed and hung up. Googling the number says that other people have received the same thing, and it isn't a real UPS phone number. What was the angle of this scam?

TTT · Answer

I suspect someone has a list of names and phone numbers and they are going through them to see which ones are still valid. Two possible reasons for this could be:

If you recently applied for a job, or applied for an apartment, etc, online, it could simply be that this service is verifying the phone number you supplied is accurate. This could help weed out fake applications.
A recently validated list of names and numbers is much more valuable to telemarketers. It could be that the telemarketers themselves are validating the numbers, or the validated list is going to be sold to telemarketers in the near future. The idea is that when you answer a call and someone asks for you, the call is likely to last longer than a cold call, and this increases the chances of a sale. I would not be surprised if in the near future you receive one or more calls from someone asking for you by name, followed by a sales pitch. When you get the call, be strong, my friend.

Disclaimer: this is conjecture only.

What kind of scam did someone claiming to be from UPS attempt?

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