If you’ve recently received a call from 800-830-8574, don’t ignore it. And don’t believe some of the posts you’ll find online that suggest this is some kind of scam. This important credit card verification call is likely linked to your PayPal card or another credit card. If you don’t respond, your card could stop working, leaving you without it when you need it the most.
I want to make one note before we continue, however.
Scammers have ways of making a call look like it comes from another number, so a scammer who has figured out that a call from 800-830-8574 is a legitimate credit card verification call might be able to make his phishing call look like it’s coming from this number.
Also, remember this: If someone calls you, they should already know you who are. Don’t provide more than a minimum amount of information to help the person or automated system on the other end of the line determine which of their many customers you are.
One Example
When Fort Worth copywriter Gip Plaster received a call from 800-830-8574, he assumed it was a scam. But he also remembered reading another writer’s blog post about a PayPal verification call he received. Plaster wrote a post called PayPal Calling: Call From 800-830-8574 Could Really Be PayPal to help educate the public about calls from this number.
In his case, he called the number back from his home phone, the same number at which he got the call. An automated voice asked him for only the last four digits of his PayPal debit card. As he rightly points out, a criminal couldn’t possibly steal an identity with only that piece of information, so there was no reason not to provide it.
The automated voice then read him his name and asked him to verify the five most recent transactions on the card by pressing a number for yes or no about each one. He never had to provide any additional information and the automated voice knew his PayPal debit card history, proving it really was a company acting on PayPal’s behalf that was calling.
Others report being routed to a real person but still only being required to verify recent transactions.
In some cases, people have reported that the credit card verification process has helped them catch some potentially costly and inconvenient unauthorized transactions. That also saves the company money, so everyone wins.
PayPal and most other credit and debit card issuers have additional safeguards in place to protect your accounts as well, and in most cases you are not held responsible for unauthorized transactions.
If You Get A Call From 800-830-8574
Don’t panic. It’s probably a legitimate credit card verification call.
Go ahead and provide the identifying information the voice wants if it is something as simple as the last four digits of a card number. If the voice on the other end is able to identify you with no additional information and wants nothing more than to verify your recent transactions (which they read to you, not which you have to read to them), everything is probably just fine.
If you get a message asking you to return a call to this number, return the call from the number at which it was received and provide as little information as possible. If it’s a legitimate call, you will be identified easily and the questions will be limited to your last few transactions.
Getting a call from 800-830-8574 can be unsettling, but it’s usually just a courtesy to make sure your account is in good condition. If there is a discrepancy, answering or returning the call is the first step toward solving it.
Ignoring the call or delaying your response to it could cause one of your important cards to stop working, and that could be, at the least, inconvenient.