Longboaters: Be wary of telephone scams

The next time your children or grandchildren give you a call, you should interrogate them to make sure that’s really who is on the other line before proceeding with a friendly chat.

A telephone scam that continues to run rampant in the Sarasota-Bradenton area has hit Longboat Key, too.
It works like this.

A person will receive a call from someone pretending to be his or her child or grandchild. The caller says they have a hoarse voice and that he or she was in a car accident and needs some money wired to fix a rental car.

Other potential derivatives of the scam include grandchildren calling from jail. They say they are too embarrassed to call their parents and hope that grandma or grandpa can help bail them out.

If a resident wires money to their “loved one,” (typically the money is wired to Canada through a wire transfer service) it generally can’t be recovered.

 “There has definitely been an uptick in activity because of the state of the economy,” said Longboat Key Police Capt. Kris Roberts. “Everyone is looking for a way to make some money.”

Another popular scam that has picked up speed on Longboat Key again is the bank-account scheme.

“All year long, we get people calling residents as fake representatives of their bank, asking them to verify their bank account numbers,” Roberts said. “Don’t do it.”

See the above box for tips on how to avoid being a victim of these phone solicitation scams.

PHONE TIPS
To avoid being a victim of phone solicitations, hang up:
• If you don’t know the person to whom you are talking.
• If an unknown caller asks you for your Social Security Number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers or date of birth.
• If you receive a call asking you to provide personal information to win a prize.
• If you are called and asked to verify information about your credit cards. If the caller claims to be a bank representative, hang up and call your bank directly using a valid number from a telephone book or the bank’s website. Remember, banks will never call you and ask for personal information over the phone.

Contact Kurt Schultheis at [email protected].