I received a call from a young lady at a concerned financial institution that had sent me some information I had applied for. They wanted to know if I had dealt with it yet. I said, "No." and was asked if I wanted to handle it right then and there over the phone. I said, "No. I never transact financial affairs over the phone." - The young lady's voice changed a bit and as she was thanking me, etc. I could tell she did not appreciate my philosophy. I guess not. If everyone said that she would be out of a job.
While it is not quite true that, 'I NEVER transact financial affairs over the phone', I try to stick to it up to a point. I try to remember if the call is incoming it could be anybody on the phone. Sort of like being in an online chatroom. You can bet big bucks that 'Sweetguy18' is most likely a 300 pound drooling horny slob and not the college student he claims to be. However I'm certain this young lady was truly with the financial institution. So was I being paranoid?
NO!
I can say this so firmly because my real desire was to hang up so I could continue watching a TV show. I wasn't being paranoid. I was being self-centered.
This morning I get an email with this:
Most of us take those summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced. Fall for it and your identity could be stolen, reports CBS.
In this con, someone calls pretending to be a court official who threateningly says a warrant has been issued for your arrest because you didn't show up for jury duty. The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant.
Sometimes they even ask for credit card numbers. Give out any of this information and bingo! Your identity just got stolen.
.......
Check it out here: - Snopes - Jury Duty Fraud -
I love this type of email because it gives a link to a place I trust to back it up. Of course Nigerian scam letters too can have links to back up the stories they tell.
- Hello! My name is Mrs Dead Rich Guy and this is a link to the news story I'm currently using in my scam... -
Is it chance, luck, fate or the Hand of A Higher Power that had this email sent to me at a time when I was mentally torn about what to post on? I could have posted on so many things. The DPW Port Deal falling through. The poll on Bush's approval ratings.
How to connive $5 from your kid. The list goes on.
This jury duty note is real good because it reminds us that strangers calling on the phone may not be who they say they are. The same sort of scam is used saying the caller is with the IRS and the FBI.
Snopes.com has some great advice that everyone in the country should know by now but apparently not because the scams still work. If they didn't work the con artists would stop using them. - Use the following guidelines for ALL types of incoming calls. -
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How to Avoid Falling Victim to 'Jury Duty' Scams:
* Court workers will not telephone to say you've missed jury duty or that they are assembling juries and need to pre-screen those who might be selected to serve on them, so dismiss as fraudulent phones call of this nature. About the only time you would hear by telephone (rather than by mail) about anything having to do with jury service would be after you have mailed back your completed questionnaire, and even then only rarely.
*** The FBI will not call claiming you have broken some law either. They will just beat your front door in. ***
* Do not give out bank account, social security, or credit card numbers over the phone if you didn't initiate the call, whether it be to someone trying to sell you something or to someone who claims to be from a bank or government department. If such callers insist upon "verifying" such information with you, have them read the data to you from their notes, with you saying yea or nay to it rather than the other way around.
* Examine your credit card and bank account statements every month, keeping an eye peeled for unauthorized charges. Immediately challenge items you did not approve.
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