Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Extortion Scam Alert - Beware!

Twice today I jumped when the phone rang, half expecting news about my ill mother, only to hear an ominous recording each time. The voice indicated a possibility of imprisonment if I failed to stand before a United States magistrate for a federal criminal offence. Skeptical as I am of mysterious threats, I looked up the phone number given and all kinds of scam notices popped up.

I doubt residents outside of the United States are being targeted, but beware of a David Gray threatening you with enforcement action by the US Treasury. The number left on my answering machine, 551-497-4103, pulled up a News Center article providing an alternative alias of Dennis Gray using phone number 567-203-4082. Below is the link if you are interested.

Washington County Sheriff's Office Warns of Scam

This is one of those times I am truly grateful for the Internet. Scams are all around us, whether through false advertising schemes or more insidious illegal fear tactics like this. I actually fell for such a ploy as a child, promised in the back of an Archie comic book that mailing $1 would buy me a stuffed animal in return. It sounds comical in retrospect but I was mildly brokenhearted. I wonder how much money that jerk made. Sad that I learned my first lesson so young, I am grateful it was not more costly and for my resulting tendency to be a little more wary.

What about you? Do you have any scams that you'd like to report?

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6 comments:

  1. About three years ago, scammers mined my blog for information and tailored an attack to me. I researched everything they said about themselves and finally asked an attorney for advice. It made no sense that they could know so much about me. The attorney told me to ignore the emails. Eventually, I went through my blog posts and realized that everything in their correspondence came from one post or another. It was a harrowing two weeks - I thought long lost family members were trying to contact me.

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    1. How awful! I feel so bad for your suffering. Crooks are insidious. Thank you for sharing this tale of warning.

      As for my minor incident, I understand that word of this is already on local news if I ever bothered to turn on the television. ~rolls eyes~ Oh, well, this post may still help someone else.

      Take care!

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  2. You have to be so careful these days. I now never believe anything I get via email or on the phone. I worry about all the elderly people who get scammed. They are sometimes too trusting and, usually, the least able to afford to lose money. These scammers are truly horrible people.

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    1. I couldn't agree more. It takes an effort to remember all the good in the world with so much bad. Thank you for taking time to read and comment.

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    2. hi there! hope you're well. i was reporting the calls to the FCC via online, but was getting so many i started blocking the numbers. my phone holds 30 numbers to block so it's a rotating list! so annoying.

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    3. Wow! So sorry you are suffering from this nonsense. Unfortunately, my cheap little phone doesn't allow me to block numbers. On that number I keep getting calls about a loan I never sought. It is irritating, at the very least. Be well!

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