I am deaf - use Cattion Call phone - receiced message3 from 18008341123saying - too many icloud log in attemps - contact Apple w

Phishing.

Apple doesn’t make (unsolicited) calls.

If Apple ID issues are detected, Apple locks you out of the Apple servers, and forces a reset or recovery, as documented.

Calling phone number info can be spoofed, so the calling info on received calls is unfortunately always suspect.

When it doubt, look up the number (from a trusted source!) and call back.

Recognize and avoid phishing messages, phony support calls, and other scams - Apple Support

Taxies wrote:

Thank you for your reply - I thought maybe it was meant to jam the Apple servers with questions with many people calling Apple at once. And also wondered if others had received such a call.

These scam calls are ubiquitous, on-going, persistent, and routinely discussed around here.

The calling numbers and the URLs and the wording changes.

The scammers seemingly also continuously evaluate what works and what doesn’t.

What generates the intended responses and then the revenue, and what doesn’t.

On average, we ourselves are easier to hack than our devices and our Macs.

The payback of a fraction of a percent of recipients high enough...

With the cost of phishing low...

And the risk of consequences low...

...so the returns on the investments here mean it’s well worth repeatedly calling an entire continent.

Here’s another: Received the following email. [ Reminder … - Apple Community

Wouldn’t surprise me to see a dozen or more of these phishing attempts posted here today, and I won’t see but a very small fraction of what gets posted around here each day.

Taxies wrote:

Just didn't realize they were now using 800 numbers.

Who says they’re really using 800 numbers?

Calling info can be spoofed.

One bunch of miscreants was routinely spoofing random numbers in the same calling exchange, which was quite useful to me to identify those calls, as I never received calls from that same exchange. Other than scams. That bunch used other tricks, too.

Email addresses and SMS senders can be spoofed, too. I routinely get new mail messages “from“ a friend. A friend that had died a few years ago. That we had previously communicated became known to the scammers thanks to a mail hosting server breach a while back, and they then tried to use that to scam others. Those particular scam messages are easy to spot, and I have mail rules to suppress those.