Recently, a round of phone scammers have been dialing through our area with a caller-ID of (000) 000-0000, which should already raise suspicions.

When you answer, a synthesized voice says that they are calling from JPMorgan Chase MasterCard security. They claim that your credit card has been disabled due to suspicious activity, and in order to reactivate it, you need to enter your 16-digit credit card number.

I decided to see how far I could take the robot voice for a ride, so I entered 16 random digits. No luck, the robot voice knew about the checksum and asked me to enter it again. I did a quick search for fake credit card number and landed on this blog entry and entered the first fake credit card number on that page.

The robot voice accepted the credit card and proceeded to ask me for the card’s expiration date (I made one up) and the PIN (I made one up). At that point, it reported that it had successfully verified the information and that my card had been re-enabled.

Of course, the joke’s on them: The fake credit card I used wasn’t even a fake MasterCard number. It was a fake VISA credit card!

By the way, don’t read the comments on that blog entry if you want to retain any faith in humanity.