A hefty price
Advances in technology are great, but they don’t come without cost. Not a high price tag — the price of scammers.
Nowadays, nearly everyone has a cell phone or laptop where they are easily reachable by phone call or email. Scammers will often pull the heartstrings of the person they are going after, calling and saying a loved one was in a car accident or a grandchild needs bond money, Mountain Brook Police Lt. Chuck Clark said. The latter, he said, is more common with grandparents.
“They didn’t grow up in a time where this [scamming] was so common,” he said. “They [the scammers] are playing on their emotions by saying it’s their grandchild, and they end up making a mistake.” The scammer asks for money, usually in the form of a card number, before emptying the account.
Other common scams include impersonating the Sheriff’s Office or the IRS; stating you won the lottery; impersonating a Drug Enforcement Agency officer or an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officer; saying a computer is infected with a virus after the computer freezes, requiring money to unlock it; stating money is owed for an electric or water bill; and impersonating someone with an internal fraud investigation.
A salacious video scam, which says a video of the victim will be released if they don’t provide money to the scammer, can be done via phone, email or mail.
Many have started to catch on to these tricks, but typically, Clark said, scammers will ask the victim for a direct bank account number or to purchase gift cards and read off the card’s numbers. The scammer will then use the numbers and empty the account or cards.
“And of course at that point, the money’s gone,” he said.
Because scammers will “spoof” phone numbers — usually ones that have the same area code as the victim — and email addresses, creating a false identity behind the numbers or emails (as an individual or a company) and rerouting them around the world so they’re untraceable, Clark said there is no chance of getting money back at that point.
“It’s almost impossible to track them,” he said. “Bottom line for most of these scams is, if they get your money, you’re probably out that money and we’re not going to be able to do much about it.”
The IRS has stated the governmental body does not initiate contact with taxpayers in any form other than a physical letter. And no government agency will ask you to pay a bill with a gift card, Clark said.
This carries over to many organizations and Clark said, if in doubt, “just hang up the phone and look up a phone number for the agency or company and make contact with them. Don’t use the original number they called you on.”
Clark said the police department doesn’t write reports for scams that result in no money being taken, but they will if someone is a victim of a scam. Regardless, he still recommends that anyone with any doubt about the legitimacy of a phone call, email or letter call the police department before giving out gift card or bank account numbers, because once money is gone, it’s gone.
“Once you’ve given them the money, we’re not going to be able to get it back,” Clark said.
Find more on scams through the Federal Trade Commission at consumer.ftc.gov.