CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Sneaky scammers are breaking into cell phone accounts by posing as the provider.
Michael Sep reached out to NBC Charlotte about the phone call he believed for nearly 15 minutes.
"This is Stephanie from Verizon, do you have a few minutes?" the caller said to Sep a week ago.
"She basically just said, 'I'm calling to let you know you may have some interruption in your phone service over the next 24 hours,'" Sep added. "We're upgrading from 4G to 4.5 LTE."
Prior to this call, Sep said he had no service issues.
"Then it started to break up like they were calling me from a place with one bar," explained Sep.
Stephanie then told Sep he was being transferred.
"I'm going to put you through with my manager, and he's going to look at your account and explain all the ins and outs," Sep said. Minutes later, he was asked for a four-digit pin.
Verizon sent us a statement in response to the incident.
"Protecting customer accounts is one of Verizon's top priorities. Please keep in mind, as a matter of practice, Verizon will never call and ask you for your pin or other personal information. If something doesn't feel right, hang up with the caller and verify what you're being asked by calling Verizon's customer care line at 1-800-922-0204 or *611."
As spam and robocalling detection have improved, spoofing, specifically neighbor spoofing, has become a tactic that spammers use to trick people into answering calls.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) offers a number of great tips to help safeguard yourself from scams. There's also an option to report the calls in the “How do I report suspected spoofing?” section.
Verizon also offers a number of options for blocking incoming spam callers through number blocking as well as its caller name ID service which flags calls that are suspicious.
Once Sep realized Verizon wasn't doing an upgrade, and employees shouldn't be asking for that kind of information, he hung up and called the number back, which connected him to the real Verizon.
"I think somebody hacked my account," Sep told the Verizon rep. "She opened my account, and all my notifications were turned off, thumbprint reader turned off, an iPhone X was ordered and set to leave the warehouse in 24 hours."
Thankfully, the damaged was fixed, but Sep doesn't want anyone else to fall victim.
"Try to get the word out to family and friends," he said. "If they got me, they can get anybody. People like my dad would've given him any information he could. It's scary."