Blurb: A grandchild calls from another country asking, "Grandma, quickly send money for my bail!" Your daughter's boyfriend calls from Florida saying he's in trouble and needs money immediately. How do you know it's a scam? Read more...
Story:
Several homes across the Northeast Kingdom have received phony phone calls from people attepting to scam them from thousands of dollars.
These days, scamming across the country is a multi-billion dollar industry. Lynne Johnson of St. Johnsbury received a call from her grandsom who was seemingly in trouble in Toronto. He asked her to send $4,200 immediately to get him out of jail.
Fortunately, she was able to outwit him. Johnson's grandson had called her "Gram." None of her grandchildren call her by that name, and although she was in a sticky situation, she picked up on it.
"There was something about the voice that just didn't ring true," Johnson said after attempting to trick the caller into giving the correct name.
“The best defense to these kinds of scams is consumer education,” the coordinator of the consumer assistance program at the Attorney General’s office, Jason Duquette-Hoffman said.
Duqeuette-Hoffman also explained that several scamming phone calls were made to a retirement home near Shelburne, Vermont. These scams are aimed at people who wouldn’t otherwise know its better to decline the offers.
There are several scams, including ones that try to convince people that they’ve won the lottery.
However, there are several ways to confirm that these are legitimate, including calls for donations to charities. Check numbers, websites, return phone calls and always double-check sources before sending any money.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment