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Scams to look out for in 2020

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Scams to look out for in 2020

Unread postby SlapHappy » Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:26 pm

https://www.newberryobserver.com/news/3 ... or-in-2020

Scams to look out for in 2020
January 15, 2020 Newberry Observer News 0
By Kelly Duncan - kduncan @ championcarolinas.com

NEWBERRY — With the new year well underway, Sheriff Lee Foster is encouraging the community to be wary of potential scammers.

Foster said most scams are simply change-ups on what they (scammers) have always been doing and it is usually by the same people.

“Most of it comes from outside of the country — Africa, Jamaica, a lot of the Middle East participates in the scam phone calls, Eastern Europe,” he said. “What befuddles most people is just like one I got this morning (Jan. 8) that came in from Galveston, Texas. The person on the other end of the phone was trying to sell a warranty service for a car that I don’t even own — was most definitely a Middle Eastern person.”

Foster also said these scams can take different variations which include, but are not limited to: home warranty, car warranty, IRS (Internal Revenue Service), fail to appear for jury duty or residential property taxes.

“Right now, the IRS scam where they say you either defrauded the IRS and you owe back taxes or your social security has been compromised — those are the primary ones we’re getting right now,” Foster said. “The biggest key to that is, most people have to understand that social security or IRS is not going to call you — they’ll send you a letter. They’re not going to just out of the blue call you.”

Asking to pay money in gift cards is another sign of a scam that Foster said to watch out for.

“The other key to that is if they ask you to pay this money in gift cards like Visa or Mastercard, Amazon or a Walmart money card, that’s definitely going to be a scam because there is not any government that takes gift cards to pay off a debt,” he said. “Everybody is concerned with their social security because they’ve paid into it for so many years and they are also worried about the IRS because they don’t want any trouble with the government on taxes.”

In regards to car warranty scams, Foster recalled a situation where scammers were using the names of people who worked at Stokes Trainor — Foster’s own son’s name was used once.

“Of course, that’s easy to find out. It’s on the websites or they make phone calls and call the service department,” he said.

Foster encourages everyone to verify information before falling in a scammer’s trap — he suggested utilizing the many apps available which can help identify spoof numbers.

Another scam making headlines as of late involves the debate of abbreviating or writing out the year “2020.”

“That’s been a little bit, in my opinion, overemphasized. If you write a check for instance and put 20’ it doesn’t invalidate your check and if somebody changed the date on it — if they put 2017 on the check that you wrote today, it’s not going to really change anything because the bank is still going to go by what’s in your account,” Foster said.

He added that changing the numbers has more to do with contracts and agreements.

“Somebody could back date a contract or forward the contract, instead of 2020 the contract could go for five more years. It’s more of a legal issue — it could turn into a financial problem, but that’s where you need to worry about it. In other words, if you’re signing a contract and you just put 20’ on it, they could extend the issuing of your contract if you’re dealing with some unscrupulous person,” he said. “It’s not as much an issue about forging checks or anything like that, but it’s more along the things you sign that could cause you to have to pay longer than you wanted to or somebody that works in a company that is trying to defraud someone else can use that — it’s not as big of an issue as some people are making it out to be.”

Foster suggested visiting www.snopes.com, a website that allows users to check out rumors. According to Foster, this is not something individuals need to worry about, but they should be cautious.

“Always a good idea when you’re filling out any kind of government form to fill out the entire year (MM/DD/YYYY) to make sure you verify the exact year so there is no confusion.” he said. “If a spoof number calls, hang up and forget about them. If you believe it’s true check it out, but don’t give out any personal information.”
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