Phone Call Tries to Scam You in One of Three Different Ways
As if one isn't enough, a group of scammers is using one of three different tactics to get money, including mine.
The Grand Junction Police Department has received several reports of people receiving calls from Tonga, (the Kingdom of Tonga) which, if you don't know, are a group of Polynesian islands in the south Pacific Ocean.
The three tactics likely used to scam you are:
- You have won the lottery
- You have a warrant out for your arrest
- There is something wrong with your computer
In my case, the female caller from tech support said my computer was causing problems. The explanation attempted to lead me to believe that my computer was infected and spewing out spam and clogging the network. She offered to help me fix the problem.
I told the woman I have more than one computer and asked which one was causing the problem. That request was followed by a long pause. So I asked, what was the IP address of the problem computer and I could figure out which machine had that address.
Her response, uncomfortable near silence and then she hung up. The caller ID on my phone identified the call as Toll Free 1-800-999-1020.
The best thing to do when receiving unsolicited calls is to hang up or don't answer in the first place. If the call seems legitimate, one great way to find out is start asking questions without answering any or sharing any personal information. And as I said before, if you have even the slightest doubt, hang up.
Another tactic I've occasionally used to get rid off these annoying people is to ask them to call me back at another number like 970-242-6707 which belongs to the Grand Junction Police Department.