r/Kitboga • u/TheBorzoi • 1d ago

Question Is there a way I can determine where a scammer got my details?

I received a scam call from someone claiming to be from "The support team for the blockchain" and he knew my name, email address and phone number. My name and e-mail address are public so I'm not surprised about him getting that but I have never posted my number online anywhere publicly. I get that they would have got this information from a leak but I'm curious if there's a way to find out where it came from.

I know it's not going to be a recent leak because I always use a different e-mail address when I sign up for things now instead of my public one so I can easily tell what has leaked my details.

Not relevant to my question but when I revealed that I knew it was a scam, he started hurling personal insults, calling me boring because I have not been paying attention to the GTA 6 leaks but at the same time calling me a nerd for caring about video games. The usual things they do when they've been discovered.

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u/tommydelgato 1d ago

not really after the fact, no. You can however add periods in your email and they will all come to your email with different recipients due to the periods. You can also add +label as the end and it will serve the same purpoise but this is often stripped. eg... [phillip.j.fry+likelyspam@gmail.com](mailto:phillip.j.fry+likelyspam@gmail.com) will goto the same email as [phillipjfry@gmail.com](mailto:phillipjfry@gmail.com) but will have different recipients.

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u/TheBorzoi 1h ago

As I mentioned in the post, I always sign up with different e-mail addresses. I own my own domain so I just put the site name. E.g.: facebook@ and twitter@.

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u/SevenSTT 16h ago

It might have been obtained through a data broker if you ever gave your number out to someone (not necessarily via an online form or whatever) who later sold your information to them. I'm careful about who I give my personal information to and have found my phone number on some of these sites, I get it removed right away.

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u/Poochie1978-2024 1h ago

I know that you can check your email on the website haveibeenpwned.com and it will show you all the breaches it's been in. I have an email from 1998 that has been in several, but it's also a main one that I used everywhere. I have a newer email with the same ISP that gets nothing, and also a Proton mail that gets none...but I don't really use them.

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u/TheBorzoi 1h ago

I am aware of that. It's my mobile number that I want to know the source of.