The Cuban journalist Alexis Boentes, currently a reporter for Telemundo 51, recounted how he nearly became a victim of a phone scam before embarking on a cruise from Miami, despite always believing he would be able to easily recognize any attempt at fraud.
"I used to say: 'It's impossible for a scammer to take my money'; however, it almost happened to me," Boentes explained in a reel shared on Facebook, where he chose to share his experience to warn others.
The problem began just a few days before the trip. Boentes had personally made the reservation for the cruise and later purchased a beverage package, but he had doubts about whether the transaction had been processed correctly.
To verify it, she took her phone, searched on Google for "MSC customer service", and called one of the numbers that appeared in the results.
The conversation initially seemed completely legitimate. The supposed representative asked for his full name, and shortly after, he was able to confirm accurate information about the reservation.
"They tell me: 'Yes, exactly, the reservation is fine, you are leaving on such a day, on that ship, departing from Miami, with a return,'" the journalist recalled.
The level of detail made Boentes believe at times that he was truly conversing with company personnel.
However, the situation changed when he was informed that he allegedly had an outstanding payment related to recreational activities and a security protocol for boarding the ship.
The person on the phone then began to pressure him to make the supposed payment immediately using a bank card and assured him that if he waited until he got to the ship, he would have to pay much more.
"He did everything possible to get me to share my card information and make that payment," she explained.
The insistence and the charges he did not recognize aroused his suspicions. Boentes decided to hang up without providing the financial information and waited until the next day to make another call.
This time, he didn’t use a number found through a general internet search. He went directly to the official website of the cruise company and looked for the customer service phone number there.
Then he discovered what had happened: the number he had initially called did not belong to the company, but to scammers trying to obtain his credit card information.
Boentes explained that the criminals were able to make the deception believable because, after obtaining the victim's basic information, they were able to consult reservation details and learn specifics about the trip.
"That's why they tried to deceive me, and for a moment, I even thought that I was really speaking with the cruise company," he acknowledged.
The journalist turned the experience into a warning for others and pointed out that a similar maneuver could be used not only with cruise companies but also with airlines, utility companies, and other services.
Always go to the official website, look for the phone number, and do not call any number that appears on Google or social media. Protect your money, he advised.
The attempted fraud reported by Boentes occurs in a context of frequent alerts about phone scams in South Florida.
The Plantation Police warned in April about criminals impersonating officers to extort money, even falsifying official phone numbers and using actual names of police officers to lend credibility to the calls.
Authorities advised to hang up on suspicious calls, not to provide personal or financial information, and to contact the institution directly through its official channels, a precaution that ultimately prevented Boentes from giving out his card details.
A case that occurred this year also demonstrated the extent to which these scams can go: a woman lost 1,000 dollars through a fraudulent call in Miami-Dade after a man impersonated a representative from a financial institution and convinced her to send the money via Zelle.
In that case, the deception gained credibility because the call displayed a real number from the financial institution.
The victim was pressured with the false claim that their account was being used for fraudulent operations and ended up transferring the money, believing that this would protect their funds.
Miami-Dade authorities had already warned about the rise of scams through calls and messages, where criminals impersonate immigration agents and use pressure, fear, or seemingly authentic information to obtain money or personal data.
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