Social Security Phone Scams

One of the latest phone scams is from a caller claiming to be from the Social Security Administration (SSA) and that your social security number is being used for fraudulent activities.  They claim that your social security number has been suspended because of this activity and that you have to talk to them to straighten it out and have your number "un-suspended."  Well - for one thing - social security numbers do not ever get suspended.  In many cases, the actual SSA customer number is spoofed on the caller ID.  They want you to press "1" to connect to the SSA and straighten out the problem.  When you do so, of course, they will ask you to "verify" your personal information.  They don't actually have your information, but when you "verify" you provide them with your information and can it be used for their identity theft activities. I was curious one time, answered the call, and pressed "1" to connect. I was greeted by a recording in English saying that I would be connected to an SSA customer service representative but was then connected with a woman speaking Chinese.  Some of these scammers have left messages on my phone, and they too were in Chinese.

This video shows an interesting perspective of these phone scammers by showing the goings-on of a scam call center, some of the tools they use, and how they operate.

If you don't recognize a phone number, simply don't answer.  If it is a friend not in your contacts list or other legitimate callers, they will most likely leave a  message and you can call them back.  But be careful - these scammers, particularly the SSA scammers, often leave voice messages and give you a number to call back.  You can often tell that this is a scam caller, however, by the robot voice.  If you ever want to be sure, look up the legitimate customer number for the SSA or other business that you need to contact.  Then call that number instead of the number left in the voicemail.