Don't Be Fooled

Because most people are basically polite, phone scammers are able to bamboozle them out of millions of dollars. For real.

If someone walked up to you on the street (if you can remember being out on the streets) and handed you some line about you owing them money, you would sidestep them and go about your business, right?

But there is something ingrained in Americans that makes it next to impossible to a) resist answering a ringing phone and b) hanging up on some nuisance caller once you've answered.

So the scam is, crooks know how to make a phone call appear to your caller ID to be from a real police department. It's only natural to answer. It's the POLICE, for crying out loud!

But it might not be the police on the line. It might be "the police."

The fact is, the police might call you in reference to an investigation, or as a reverse-911 call to alert you to an emergency situation.

They will NOT call you to tell you that you missed showing up in court over a traffic violation.

They will NOT call to say there is a warrant out for your arrest, but that you can "pay a fine" in order to avoid criminal charges.

Incredibly, some of these scammers are telling people that they can pay off their "fines" with Amazon gift cards.

The crooks are smart enough to ascertain the real names and ID numbers of real police to make themselves appear to be legitimate. By gaining peoples' trust, they're in the door, so to speak, and about to separate people from their money. They will even research private information about their victim to really set the trap.

And they have lately been adding this new wrinkle:  Whereas the traditional victim has been someone on the elderly age scale, now they are going after professionals, threatening them with the loss of their credentials on top of the identity and monetary theft. 

“The best defense to these scams is knowledge and vigilance,” says FBI Special Agent in Charge Susan Ferensic. “Citizens should understand law enforcement will not demand payment of money by way of phone call or email. Suspicious solicitations of this type should be reported to the police or IC3.GOV, a web site maintained by the FBI. We will continue to investigate these complaints and track down the perpetrators.”

The US Attorney's Office offers these tips:

• Make your social media accounts private and only accept requests and messages from people you know.
• Be wary of answering phone calls from unrecognizable numbers.
• Call, on another phone, the number that you were called from to confirm the legitimacy of the caller and reason for the call.
• Know that a police department or law enforcement officer will never solicit money – particularly through gift cards – from the public.
• Never give your personal information, including banking information – to someone over the phone.
• Do not send money to people or organizations that you do not personally know and trust.
• If you receive a call that appears to be government impersonation fraud, disconnect without providing any personal information and without adhering to the caller’s instructions
• Contact your local police department immediately to report the fraud by calling 911.
• Submit complaints to the FBI at ic3.gov and the Federal Trade Commission, which collects fraud reports nationwide, at reportfraud.ftc.gov.
• Warn family, friends, and associates about the scam, so they can be on high alert.

I don't like to see any of my friends getting rooked by crooks, so let's be wary!