Officials warn western New Yorkers of scams
Eartha Danner received a call last week that she didn’t trust.
A man told her that she was eligible to receive $1,000 of free groceries.
All she needed to do was pay $9.99 from her credit card over the phone for the processing fee.
She didn’t trust him and quickly hung up.
“It just sounded like a scam, and when I started talking to friends, they were telling me that they received the same call,” said Danner, a Rochester resident. “People should know not to just freely give your credit card information over the phone.”
Local government officials are warning western New Yorkers about scams meant to trick people into passing along credit and debit card information in exchange for funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the economic stimulus package passed by Congress.
“It is outrageous to me that in this time of economic hardship, people are using the stimulus package as an excuse to make a quick buck off of hard-working Americans,” Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport, said in a statement.
There have been reports that people have fallen victim after being convinced that they can qualify for government funds if they give their Social Security number or other information out as part of the application process. The scams ask callers to send a small processing fee, supposedly to get a much larger check in return. Others skip the fee and instead ask for a bank account number so they can “deposit” the check. Then they use the information to clean out bank accounts or open new ones using the person’s identifying information.
ELAMOTHE@DemocratandChronicle.com
Help stop scams
Slaughter’s office encourages residents who spot scams to file a complaint at www.ftc.gov/complaint. While the FTC doesn’t resolve individual issues, submitted complaints can help the agency detect patterns and lead to investigations.
