Tip of the Day: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now being used by scammers to clone a voice. Only a few words are needed. Recently there was a news story (not in Lincoln Hills) about a woman who heard her granddaughter sobbing during a version of the grandchild scam. It was not her granddaughter, but it was her voice. This makes it more important than ever to have a family password that can be used to verify identity.
Grandchild Scam: A new version of the jury duty phone call scam has emerged. Sheriff Wayne Woo has issued an alert on Placer County Sheriff’s Office Facebook page. You can listen to the scam here.
“Phone scammers are back at it again, and this time it’s Sgt. Wayne Woo (he’s actually our current sheriff) calling citizens around Placer County telling them he has important legal documents that require an immediate call back. The number indicated in the voicemail is (530) 323-0509. As proactive as we’d like to be, we just don’t give courtesy calls involving legal matters. You’ll either find out through the mail or when our deputies show up in person (the takeaway here is always be good!). If you believe you have been financially victimized by a scammer, please file a Placer County crime report at https://www.placer.ca.gov/2298/Online-Crime-Reporting.”
Phone Company Scam: A resident received a call from an “AT&T representative” (provider for land line, tv & internet services.) The scammer offered a discount on our AT&T monthly services, which was being made to “only a very few good, loyal AT&T customers.” If accepted, savings would be about 40% the past monthly charges for 24 months; no contract required. They required only that they pay the first 3 months, $450 ($150/month X 3) in a one-time payment upon agreement to the discounted offer. The next step was to go to Target (who he said AT&T was partnering with), purchase a red & white Target gift card, then call the representative back to give the gift card’s numbers to pay the $450 balance to AT&T. This had to be done within 1 hour, including the call back to AT&T. The alert resident did not fall for it because of the classic red flags of payment by gift card and pressure to act immediately.