An
Anti-Scam Tutorial—Part II
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This is the concluding
portion of this year’s article
on scams.
Lose
Your
Money by Phone Scam: Someone
phones you, claiming to be a relative
or the friend of a relative. There is an
emergency and they need money immediately.
Often they want to pick up the money in person, or have a
“friend” pick
it up. They may display knowledge about
you or your relatives. However, such
knowledge is fairly easy to acquire through outside sources or even by
your
responses to their non-specific statements.
(That last is a technique also used by fraudulent
psychics; it’s called
“a cold reading”.) Countermeasure: Unless
you’re already well acquainted with
the caller, it’s a good bet that the call is a scam.
If you
don’t know the relative, ask for a number that you can call back. Check it against the phone book.
In any case, it’s best to refuse. GENERAL RULES:
Whenever you do loan money to someone: (1) Give the money
by check so
that you can trace its ultimate destination; any insistence on cash is
a red
flag. Annotate the back
of the check above
the endorsement line,
to show its purpose, and include the word “Loan”. Have
them sign below what you’ve
written. (2) If they claim that they
need the money for a specific purpose such as rent, mortgage or car
payment,
give the money directly to the landlord or lending institution. (3) If you must
give
cash, INSIST on a receipt. If
you’re giving the money to a business, the receipt should be on the
business’s
letterhead, not just a handwritten note.
Scam: You
receive a phone call from someone
claiming that they had spoken with you several months ago about an
attractive
investment, and that you had told them you could not invest then but
that you
would invest in a few months.
Countermeasure: Get
a return number, then notify the
police. This scam is usually aimed at
people of very advanced age or who are known to have cognitive problems. The con artist is hoping that your memory is
faulty and that you will take their word for the prior conversation and
your
promise.
GENERAL
RULE: Trust your memory rather than the
word of a stranger.
Scam: You
are contacted by someone in a foreign
country. They say that they need to
transfer a large amount of money to the United States, and that if you
allow
them to transfer the money through your bank account, you will get a
very large
commission.
In an alternate form of
this scam, they offer to send
the money to you directly, but they require a “good faith” payment from
you
first.
Countermeasure: Don’t
give them your bank account
number. In fact, don’t give them any information.
Don’t give them any “good faith” money.
Report the matter to the police.
GENERAL RULE:
Don’t let greed cloud your common sense.
Scam: You
receive a phone call from someone
claiming to be a worker at your credit card company or your bank. They tell you that they are reviewing your
account and need to verify some information, such as the credit card
number and
expiration date.
Countermeasure:
Offer to call back with the information.
If they decline to give you a number at which you can
return their call,
hang up. If they do give you a number,
make a note of it but don’t
use it. Instead, call the number you already have for
the company, and verify the identity of whoever called you. If you find, as you almost always will, that
the call was fraudulent, give the number you wrote down to the company
and the
police.
GENERAL RULE:
Never give out sensitive
information over the
phone (for instance Social Security number, bank account numbers,
credit card
numbers) unless you
have placed the call and it is to a known entity. Even
then, there is never a legitimate need
for someone else to have your ATM password unless you are unable to
visit the
ATM in person and have asked someone else to withdraw cash for you. That person should only be someone you know
well and trust,
because you are giving
them unlimited access to your bank account.
Scam: You
receive a collect
phone
call from someone who claims to be a repairman or other employee of
the phone company.
Countermeasure: Don’t
accept it. No legitimate
phone company employee will ask you to accept a collect call from them.
GENERAL RULE: Don’t accept
a collect call from anyone
you don’t know.
Scam: Someone
calls for donations to a charity with
a name similar to a recognized charity, or with a name that indicates a
laudable purpose, such as support of the police. They
may ask you to donate by credit card.
Countermeasure:
Tell them to send their appeal by mail.
If they give you some song-and-dance about why they can’t
do that, you know the charity is fraudulent. They won’t send anything by mail because that
will expose them to prosecution for mail fraud.
Scam: You
are told that you’ve won a sweepstakes or
other contest (which you never entered).
In order to get the proceeds, you need to send a fee that
covers
“processing” or some other vague operation.
Countermeasure: Get
a return
number, then report the matter to the police.
If you didn’t enter the contest, you haven’t won anything. Also, winners of genuine contests are not
asked for processing fees
Bad
Medicine
With the announcement of
the interim Medicare
Prescription Drug Discount cards, some new scams have appeared. We describe the most frequent one below:
Scam: You are phoned, or
someone
comes to your door, and you are told that if you give them your social
security
number, and bank information or credit card number, they will register
you for
the discount card. In some cases, they
will even know some of your private health history.
Countermeasure: Slam
the door, or get a return number and
report the matter to the police. At the
very least, the scam artist wants to make false Medicare claims in your
name. At worst, they want to drain your
bank
account.
This
article is based on information
from anti-scam organizations, from pieces in newspapers and magazines,
and from
the admirable web site www.snopes.com. W. A. Shapiro
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8/5/04