Woke up this morning to a very strange message on my answering machine. It was an official-sounding male voice saying: “Hello, I’m calling in regards to a formal complaint which has been filed against–”
[insert robotic voice] “Two Names Found” [/voice]
“…if you have any information that can lead us to the whereabouts of this individual, please call us immediately at 855-3xx-xxxx; our next step will be filing the necessary paperwork at the local county court.”
Googling the phone number turned up no useful results, except for a bare-bones Google Plus profile page for something called “Angel Flights”. If it’s a scam, it must be a very new one.
Any advice whether I should call them back or not?
Did they give the two names? Or did the computer actually say “two names found”. If they did not give actual names of people you know then you should obviously not call. If you do not know the names then you should obviously not call because it would be a waste of your time as you have no information to give them.
If you do know the people you should probably not call because the people calling have not told you why they want to contact these people. I personally would not give out information about other people without knowing who I am talking to and why they should get this information.
I haven’t received a call like this (and I collect scam calls as a hobby from my honeypot number), but it sounds similar to the IRS Scam, where someone threatens to put you in jail if you don’t come up with cash immediately. And of course the cash must be in the form of untraceable gift cards, not credit cards, and the callers sound quite official and serious.
Enough people fall victim to this scam that it’s a very profitable business.
That’s exactly what it said. It actually took me a minute to parse since the voice was rather garbled and sounded similar to a last name I am familiar with. The voice was also remarkably similar to my HOA manager (except I’ve been the one complaining recently…)
What gave me pause was that the person didn’t identify himself or his company. My past experience with banks and bill collectors is that they’ll always say who they are and where they’re calling from. Cops, too. The lack of any Google information was also a big red flag.
When I was working for the Small Business Administration, and I called people who had applied to the SBA for loans, I was not allowed to leave a message saying who I was, because it was considered a violation of the person’s privacy rights to have anybody else know they were applying for a loan. We could only give the call back number.
For callers requesting information from me, I want…
For them to identify themselves and their company/agency.
I will then look up the number of the company/agency in the phone directory, call them using the listed number, THEN give them information. (I never call them back using a phone number THEY give me!)
I NEVER give out any information to anyone calling me. It could be anyone. If it is important, I will call them back using a listed phone number. (Exception people I regularly do business with and I recognize their voice and their number on caller ID.)
I had a phone call several weeks ago that the caller ID said was US GOVERNMENT. Since I’ve had people call before claiming to be the IRS, I naturally didn’t pick up.
The next time they called I for some reason did answer. Turned out it was the Social Security Administration. I had filed for benefits a couple of weeks before the call.
I told the nice man when our business was concluded that they needed to change their caller ID tag. He agreed and said they were trying to do that. They were also trying to get the rules changed so that they could leave voice mail message – currently they can’t even give you a call back number.
If it’s a scam, it must be a very new one.