Chelsea (@chelshoop) detailed an unusual scenario in which two men claiming to work for Verizon showed up at her small business, asking who provided its internet service. These mystery men came with no company badges or business cards. They also refused to communicate by any means other than face-to-face. It appears to be a “pretexting” operation: a social engineering tactic used to profile businesses for data theft, network infiltration, or identity fraud.
The Breakdown of the Supposed Verizon Workers’ Sketchy Visits
“So, this guy came to my work, and he was a solicitor. He said that he worked for Verizon,” Chelsea started. “[He wanted to] know who our internet provider was. Nothing on his outfit indicated anything about Verizon.”
She said he needed to speak to the person in charge and attempted to give him their business card. The man declined it, saying, “I do all of my business face-to-face.”
Put a pin in that.
“The next week, two guys showed up. One of them was him,” she said. “Now, he had another guy with him, and this time, the other guy did the talking, and he—same spiel—with Verizon.”
She continued: “I didn’t give any information. I was kind of irritated, and I said, ‘Well, I told you last week when you were here that you need to talk to this other guy,’ and so I grabbed the business card.’”
This is where it gets weird.
“That guy goes, ‘Me? I’ve never been here before.’”
“And I was like, ‘Yeah. You have. Like, yeah. Last week.’”
She said he had “shaved his goatee, and now he was wearing glasses.” She also noticed they both had accents, and she had “no doubt it was the same guy.”
The Aftermath
Chelsea was curious and extremely concerned.
“Like, I don’t think that they were gonna, like, take me. I don’t think they were gonna rob me,” she said. “But I wanna know what they were … like, what do they want?”
She also had an idea that they were likely up to something nefarious: “I thought, so, like, maybe if I was naive, and was like, ‘Oh, yeah, our internet’s really slow’—would they, like, stick something into the router, and then they’re just gonna zap all the information and steal everybody’s identity?”
Then, she asked the $64,000 question out loud. “Like, what’s the—what’s the end game here for them? And why are they being so shady?”
The (Possible) End Game
The motive remains unconfirmed, but most cybersecurity experts identify this as a pretexting event.
According to AI cybersecurity outfit Arctic Wolf, pretexting “is a social engineering tactic used by threat actors to gain trust, data, or access to accounts using a fabricated story, or pretext. Threat actors will often assume the role of a person in authority, or a person the victim knows, to lend their story legitimacy.”
All the keys were in Chelsea’s story. The men were likely gathering intelligence on the business’s network infrastructure and were likely hoping to gain physical proximity to network equipment. This is typically done by planting a rogue device (such as a small hardware implant on a router or switch) that enables remote data exfiltration. Or, as the men did, profile the business for later impersonation by the actual ISP in a more targeted scam.
Their refusal to leave a paper trail, such as not offering business cards or numbers, and the deliberate change of appearance between visits are consistent with reconnaissance tactics.
Let’s see what the people had to say.
The Peanut Gallery Weighs in on Strange Experience
One person didn’t believe it was as questionable as it seemed. “Sounds like a 3rd party vendor,” they wrote. “Verizon hires them, and they only get paid if you order or upgrade with them. They get paid less than Verizon employees, and they don’t have the same access as company employees.”
But Chelsea replied, “The guy saying he had never been there before, but was there the week before, was a major [red flag].”
Another person wrote, suggesting Chelsea call Verizon, the Better Business Bureau, and the police. “All of it sounds sketchy. I don’t know if you were at home or work, but yeah, I would definitely file a report,” they said.
AllHipHop reached out to Chelsea via TikTok direct message and comment and to Verizon via email. This article will be updated upon response.
@chelshoop What are they up to? Help me solve this mystery that has been bothering me! #verizon #mystery #detective #scam #solve ♬ original sound – Chelsea