Phone scam alert in Monterey County

The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office is seeing an increase in phone call scam attempts this summer. These attackers usually want money, information, access to your computer or all three. They do this by tricking you into doing what they want by creating situations that seem very urgent. They want to get you off-balance by scaring you, so you won’t think clearly, and then rush you into making a mistake. Some of the most common examples include:

• The caller pretends that they are from a government tax department or a tax collection service and that you have unpaid taxes. They explain that if you don’t pay your taxes right away you will go to jail. They then will pressure you to pay your taxes with your credit card over the phone.

Tax organizations, including the IRS, never call or email people. All official tax notifications are sent by regular mail.

• The caller pretends that they are Microsoft Tech Support and explain that your computer is infected. Once they convince you that you are infected, they pressure you into buying their software or giving them remote access to your computer.
Always remember that Microsoft will not call you.

• You get an automated voicemail message that your bank account has been canceled and that you have to call a number to reactivate it. When you call, you get an automated system that asks you to confirm your identity and asks you all sorts of private questions.

Protecting Yourself

• Anytime anyone calls you and creates a tremendous sense of urgency by pressuring you to do something, be extremely suspicious. Even if the phone call seems OK at first, but then starts to feel strange, you can stop and hang up at any time.

• If you believe a phone call is an attack, simply hang up. If you want to confirm if the phone call was legitimate, go to the organization’s website (such as your bank) and get the customer support phone number and call them directly yourself.

• Never trust Caller ID. Bad guys will often spoof the caller number so it looks like it is coming from a legitimate organization or has the same area code as your phone number.

• Never allow an unknown caller to take temporary control of your computer or trick you into downloading software.

• If a phone call is coming from someone you do not personally know, let the call go directly to voicemail. This way, you can review the call afterwards.