CEO & Founder, Automatic
Listen to the Live Scam Call Targeting Matt Mullenweg’s Apple Account
I hope this video helps you avoid being scammed. Matt shared this recording with me and wanted to put it out there so it could help.
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, almost had his Apple account stolen — and I have the actual recording of the scam call. The full unedited call runs just under 17 minutes, but I've edited it down to the most important moments.
Matt had been receiving emails telling him to reset his Apple account. Then the phone rang. A man named Alexander, claiming to be from Apple Support, walked him through his security settings, sent him a link to what looked exactly...
About Matt Mullenweg
In a 2021 interview, Matt Mullenweg recounted the early days of WordPress, describing a meeting at CNET where he demonstrated the software by publishing an article in seconds, a process that took the existing system 20 minutes. He noted that while WordPress was inferior in many ways, it was better in that specific regard. Mullenweg also discussed his decision to launch WordPress.com independently after CNET declined his pitch, eventually housing it under Automattic.
Transcript (34 segments)
N
Narrator0:00
This is a really fascinating video and hopefully it's going to save some of you lots of pain. Matt Mullenweg, the co-founder of WordPress, almost had his Apple account stolen by somebody called Alexander. Matt had been receiving emails that morning that he needed to reset his Apple account. And then he got a phone call and what follows is a recording of that phone call. Matt became a little bit suspicious so started to record the call. But this is what happened.
M
Matt Mullenweg0:23
I do not want to change anything.
A
Alexander0:25
Yes.
M
Matt Mullenweg0:27
Yep. Okay. No worries.
A
Alexander0:29
I'll go ahead and get that process started here now.
N
Narrator0:32
Oh, sorry to interrupt, but since I recorded this, I saw this video from ElevenLabs which shows off their brand new AI agent that can talk to people as if they're actually real.
J
Jennifer0:42
Hey there, I'm Jennifer with Eleven Airlines and how can I help you today?
C
Customer0:47
Jennifer, my flight just got cancelled and I'm stuck here in Orlando. At this rate, I'm going to be missing my daughter's birthday. This is ridiculous.
J
Jennifer0:55
Yeah, I hear you and I'm so sorry about that. Let's figure out what's going on. Okay. Um, could you please tell me which flight this was?
C
Customer1:05
Yeah, this was flight MD412.
N
Narrator1:07
And then a thought struck me. Was Alexander actually an AI bot? Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you think Alexander was a bot or do you think he was a real person? I actually think he was a real person. And ElevenLabs actually have a tool that you can upload an audio file to and it'll tell you whether it's likely a human or not. But this stuff is coming our way soon unfortunately. Anyway, back to the video.
A
Alexander1:26
Matthew, while I go ahead and do that on your end, there is a few things that you are able to check over. This is just to ensure that the malicious third party won't be able to access your account after we go ahead and process this cancellation request.
N
Narrator1:38
So now Matt's thinking somebody's trying to change his phone number, but Apple have caught it. And the guy on the phone sounds completely legit. And now he's talking Matt through his security settings.
A
Alexander1:50
So Matthew, do you have access to any of your Apple devices at this time?
M
Matt Mullenweg1:56
I'm sitting in front of like four of them. Yes.
A
Alexander2:00
Okay. Yeah, perfect. That's fine. So on any of those devices, whichever one you prefer, Matthew, if you could direct yourself to the settings application or if you are on a laptop device or a computer, just...
N
Narrator2:11
Everything Alexander is actually telling Matt is pretty good advice and he's trying to build rapport as he goes through the call.
M
Matt Mullenweg2:16
Okay. Um, so the numbers are current, the emails are good. Um, the password is old, so maybe that was compromised. I don't know. Um, I do have two-factor on and I'm in lockdown mode.
N
Narrator2:38
Then Alexander says he's going to text Matt a link to cancel the request, but the text comes in from a different number with a link to audit.apple.com.
A
Alexander2:48
This is the A32 number.
M
Matt Mullenweg2:50
So, this was sent to... No. Uh, yes, the A32 number.
A
Alexander2:55
It was sent as a text message. This is just because we're reaching out to that mobile number as of right now. And we can confirm you are the person that does have access to this mobile. So, let me just go ahead here and process that.
N
Narrator3:09
Matt opens it and it looks exactly like the apple.com website. Same font, same nav, same everything. It looks perfect. And it's got the same case ID on there that he received from real Apple emails in his inbox.
A
Alexander3:21
Also have the transcripts present there for you.
M
Matt Mullenweg3:25
Okay, hold on. It's got a Cloudflare thing. Um, okay. Case ID. Thank you. So, what was your name, by the way?
A
Alexander3:35
My name is Alexander.
M
Matt Mullenweg3:36
Alexander, you are awesome by the... So, thank you for being so...
A
Alexander3:42
Thank you very much.
N
Narrator3:43
Excellent. And then the critical moment happens. Then Alexander starts pushing Matt to enter his Apple ID and email to complete a verification stage which would have meant Matt was putting his email and ID into a completely fake website.
M
Matt Mullenweg3:57
Is everything secure?
A
Alexander4:01
Uh so in relation to that uh request there Matthew you should see at the bottom it may state verification required. Uh this is just to go ahead and process that cancellation request. As I stated, we've initiated the cancellation request, but for it to be processed, it does require an original account holder or a legacy contact.
N
Narrator4:19
But then Matt started testing things. He put a completely different case ID into the website and it came back with exactly the same page. And then he knew...
M
Matt Mullenweg4:29
Huh, this is really good. So, um, this is impressive. So, this is obviously phishing. Like, so uh tell me a little bit about the scam.
N
Narrator4:45
And then Alexander just went quiet. The whole thing, the emails, the phone call, the website, it was all designed just to get Matt to put his email and his Apple ID into that fake website so they could steal that information from him.