There is a newcomer on the Federal Trade Commission’s list of the top ten consumer complaints.
Landing on the list for the first time in 2010 was the imposter scam. It took the number six spot.
The con artists who try to pull of these types of scams are among some of the sneakiest and dirtiest of all criminals. That’s because these crooks often make victims out of people with good hearts and good intentions. They try to take your loyalty and devotion to your friends and family and use it against you.
Here’s how an imposter scam goes down…
First you get an email or letter from a friend or family member. It could even be a phone call from a person who claims they’ve been in contact with someone you know.
They need your help and they need it badly! It’s a major emergency. Their health or life could be at stake and you need to to do something as soon as humanly possible!
They want you to wire some money to a certain account so that the problem can be fixed and your loved ones will be saved.
Maybe you could sniff out this scam a mile away – but there are a lot of people who just don’t see it coming.
The FTC says around 60,000 people made complaints about imposter scams in 2010. But there are many more who are targeted.
Take my wife’s grandmother as an example.
Last year she got a phone call from someone in Spain (supposedly) who said her grandson Jason had been in a bad car accident with an important politician.
Now he needed some money for bail and to pay doctor bills.
At first Grandma Donna did think this was a little suspicious. She said she didn’t even know Jason was going to Spain. She asked if she could talk to him, and was told Jason’s mouth was wired shut because of his injuries from the car accident.
But after she continued to doubt the caller – the scammers actually put someone on the phone pretending to be Jason with his mouth wired shut! Grandma Donna still said it didn’t sound like her Jason – but eventually they convinced her something needed to be done.
The love and concern for her grandson took over and she got in her car to go wire the money.
Thankfully, Grandma also likes to tell stories. So she blabbed about the whole thing to the teller as she was getting ready to wire the funds to the con artists. The teller had heard about the scam on the news and warned Grandma it was probably someone trying to trick her.
Grandma Donna never reported the incident to the FTC – but she did call all the TV stations and newspapers in town told them they needed more coverage of the scam.
You don’t have to be a grandma to fall for one of these rip-offs. High-tech imposters will hack into email accounts of your friends and family. So you’ll get an email or Facebook message that actually looks like it came from them.
Sometimes they’ll even use natural disasters like the recent earthquake in Japan to try and swindle you out of your money.
In many scams – the saying “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is” can be a good rule to follow. But in this case you could say “If it seems too terrible to be true, it probably is.”
Just remember not to rush into anything. That’s why the scammers want you to act right away. They know that if you make a few phone calls, you’re going to discover the truth.
Have you ever come into contact with an imposter scam? If you have tell us what happened so others can look out for similar situations!
Image Credit: Dave77459
+Kasey Steinbrinck writes about personal finances and the economy for Check Advantage. The online company offers cheap checks including QuickBooks checks for small businesses and Animal Checks for lovers of wildlife. Contact Kasey to request free original content for you blog or website.
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