Con artists work in cycles. There may be a surge in the number of calls that involve payments that need to be made to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) or threats of having one’s utilities turned off as a result of a purported failure to pay for them.
Take the time to check the information if you have any reason to believe that it might be inaccurate or fishy. CVW would like to stress this point once more to its audience.
“There is a huge variety of [scams],” stated Sergeant Brian Young of the Financial Crimes Unit of the Glendale Police Department.
Recently, Glendale Water and Power have been the target of several fraudulent phone calls. Swindlers who pretended to be from GWP would call locals and threaten to cut off their power if they didn’t pay a bill that they said they had received.
The victims who got the fake calls were taken aback since they were under the impression that their account had been paid in full or that they had made arrangements to pay it.
The con artist on the other end of the phone call may at times be belligerent with their threats, which frequently leads the victims to believe that there is an actual emergency situation.
Young continued by saying that in recent scams, the targets have been given the instruction to pay the bill using gift cards or cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
He claimed that even though the machines that dispense cryptocurrency have large banners telling users not to send bitcoin to someone they are unfamiliar with, individuals continue to do so.
Some cons take the form of fraudulent investments and trick victims into believing they are putting their money into genuine companies.
“[Scammers] will create a phoney website where people will invest a tiny bit of money, get a small return, and then the suspect will have the [victim] put larger amounts in,” said Young. “The suspect would then have the [victim] put larger sums in.”
Therefore, a purported initial investment of $100 could generate $1,000, and the con artists will then inform the investors that they can gain close to $100,000 if they put an additional $10,000 in the scheme.
The victims then hand the con artist $10,000, but they do not receive anything in return. When they get to that point, they might finally recognize it’s a con.
In certain instances, these suspects will make an effort to persuade their victims to keep investing in their schemes, even after they have experienced a loss of capital, by assuring them that they will ultimately be compensated with additional funds.
This guarantee is, of course, completely false, and the victims risk having their life savings taken from them.
“For the scams that [reference a] businesses [like GWP], people should contact the number that is on their bill,” Young recommended. “For the scams that [reference a] businesses [like GWP], residents should call the number they are given.”
Scammers also use a technique known as “spoofing” a phone number. For instance, the caller identification that displays on the phone of the victim may indicate the name of the company that is apparently calling, even though the person who is actually making the call has no affiliation with that company.
Fear and intimidation are common tactics that con artists employ to convince their victims to do whatever they want them to do.
Or, as Young put it, “occasionally they utilize kindness.”
The suspects may persuade their victims that they understand their concerns and “wish to help them” by decreasing the initial charge to a lower amount when in reality the victims owe nothing and the suspects have done nothing wrong.
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According to Young, the majority of the time, the con artists are from other countries, which makes it extremely difficult for law authorities to track them down and prosecute them.
Regardless, potential victims should notify law authorities if they have received a phone call or other form of contact from someone they believe to be questionable, or if they have a question about a contact that has already been made.
Young stated that he would prefer to receive a call from someone concerned about a scam than to receive a call from someone after they had been duped.
