| Telephone Scams  The Shelby County Sherriff’s Office (SCSO) warns everyone about telephone scams with
their campaign “Hang up and Verify”. A typical scam call begins with someone stating
that they are from some organization (such as Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, IRS, Social
Security, a Law Enforcement Agency, Publishers Clearing House, a Bank, etc.). The
scammers continue by saying that your computer/smartphone was hacked, you have a warrant
out for your arrest, you won a prize, your social security number was stolen, you
owe the IRS money, etc. This approach is being used to get you, as the victim, very
emotional, either scared or excited, in hopes that you will lose judgment long enough
for the scammers to complete their scheme. In many cases, the scammers will ask you
to purchase some type of gift card. In other cases, the scammers will request bank
account information and trick you by claiming they will use it to deposit money into
your account for various reasons. A huge red flag in the scammer's plan is when they
request you to purchase gift cards, and they demand that you stay on the phone throughout
the entire process.
If you receive a possible scam phone call, remember to HANG UP and VERIFY. You should
look up that organization’s true phone number and then call them to verify the information
you were told.
If you wish to learn more, here are some further details about phone scams.
There are many other red flags during phone scams. Victims often recognize the red
flags only after the fact, but during the phone calls, the scammers rely on the victims
to be too scared or too excited to pay attention to the warning signs. People can
prevent being scammed on the phone if they follow some of these guidelines. If it
seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Scammers will say you won money and prizes, but you will need to pay taxes, registration
fees, shipping costs, etc. before you can receive your “winnings.” Everyone knows
that there are sometimes taxes and fees associated from winning cash and prizes, however,
in legitimate contests with legitimate winnings, these taxes and fees are paid after
the prize has been received.
If the scammers claim to be from a law enforcement agency, the person receiving the
call should ask for the name of the agency, then hang up the phone, look up the contact
number for that agency or call their local law enforcement agency to check the legitimacy
of the caller. Please remember this important fact -- legitimate law enforcement agencies
will not request payment for fines to be paid over the phone, nor payments to be made
using gift cards. If the scammer is claiming to be from organizations such as Amazon,
Microsoft, Apple, etc., the person receiving the call should not give the caller any
personal information over the phone. The safest thing to do is hang up the phone and
then dial the actual phone number for that organization to see if the original call
was legitimate.
Scammers will also claim to be from the IRS or the Social Security Office because
they know most citizens are fearful of receiving calls from the IRS. The IRS and other
federal government agencies conduct most of their notifications through the US Mail,
so phone calls are extremely rare.
Most people believe they will never fall victim to scams like these but, unfortunately,
we are seeing more and more victims of these scams each day. Our senior citizens are
falling victim to these scams at a higher rate. Employees at retail stores, especially
the stores that sell gift cards, can assist by asking questions if they see a senior
citizen purchasing large amounts of gift cards while on their cell phones. We obviously
can’t prevent a person from buying gift cards, but by asking questions and making
them think about what they are doing, it may help them realize they are being scammed
before it is too late. These scammers have no shame and will continue to take from
each victim until that victim stops giving them money.
Policy Highlight
GP-001.02-Security Exceptions and Exemptions to ITS Standards Practices & Controls
If there is a business need to have an exception (short-term) or exemption (long-term)
to a security control or policy, the Office of Cybersecurity has a procedure to request
and evaluate that exception or exemption and report the risk rating to the system
or data owner for acknowledgement or rejection of the risk. |
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In each issue, we feature one of our amazing ITS team members. We learn more about
Lee Weaver with our Instructional Technology team in this segment.