From the website of the FBI:
The phone rings, you pick it up, and the caller identifies himself as an officer of the court. He says you failed to report for jury duty and that a warrant is out for your arrest. You say you never received a notice. To clear it up, the caller says he'll need some information for "verification purposes"-your birth date, social security number, maybe even a credit card number.
This is when you should hang up the phone. It's a scam.
The warning came from a relative who is employed by the federal government. I checked it out at the website of the FBI, and it is authentic.
an authentic scam - what a deal.
ReplyDeleteExactly, Ann. Even though I know and trust the person who sent it to me, I checked it out.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting a warning about this.
ReplyDeleteI think the basic guideline is to never give out SS number or credit card number to someone who calls or emails--no matter who they say they are.
Well, thank you very much, Mimi, for sharing that with everybody. That's my holiday in the Bahamas down the pan. On the other hand, would you like to buy a bridge?
ReplyDeleteI have heard of the same thing happening in New Mexico.
ReplyDeleteMy mom, in her mid-eighties, recently got a call, supposedly from her bank, asking for a "confirmation" of her account number and social security number. She gave the information, realized what she had done after hanging up, called her bank, learned that it was a fraud, and moved her savings to another account before anything happened.
(On the other hand, with my credit rating, I've always kind of wished that someone would steal my identity, and I could get a new one. There would be a sort of poetic justice in it.)
Thanks Grandmère Mimi.
ReplyDeleteRick, I remember your account of job loss and house loss from another blog. Sadly, it's happening with more frequency now. Do you ever recover a clean credit record?
ReplyDeleteLindy, de nada. Welcome back to blogland.