Police warn residents of phone scams



While neighbors in Jamestown are looking out for each other during the economic downturn due to the coronavirus, scammers from off the island are using the pandemic to prey on victims.

Local police and the Rhode Island attorney general’s office are warning residents about potential scams making the rounds. These phone calls feature con artists impersonating a laundry list of people, from grandparents to medical providers to sheriffs.

Derek Carlino, a detective in Jamestown, said the department is no stranger to these fraudulent calls.

“People call frequently and say, ‘I got this strange phone call,’ but hung up on them and there’s nothing for us to do,” he said. “Occasionally, someone does fall for one of the scams and we generate a full-fledged report and do what we can.”

Attorney General Peter Neronha, a Jamestown resident, said his office’s consumer protection unit also regularly receives reports of telephone, text and e-mail scams throughout Rhode Island.

“We really try to encourage people to call us if they have been a subject of one of these scams,” he said. “They all follow the same theme. They’re trying to scare you or offer you a benefit, and they’re trying to get your personal information or give them money in some way.”

Oldies but goodies

Often, the specific scams are fairly common and known to law enforcement locally and nationally. One example cited by both Carlino and Neronha is the “grandparent scam” in which an unknown caller claims to be the victim’s grandchild. That “grandchild” is allegedly in trouble, and requires money in order to be extracted from the situation. In this scam, the caller claims that bail money, fines or hospital bills can only be paid through gift cards.

“What the scammers are really focusing on is the shock and fear,” Neronha said, “and will ask someone to move or act quickly.

There are several other scams that have been reported in Rhode Island, ranging from fraudulent claims of an expired car warranty and impersonation of online retailers, such as Amazon. Neronha said his office regularly has heard reports of scammers impersonating National Grid and student loan agencies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some scams have even referred to the pandemic directly. Among those that have been reported to Neronha’s office are calls claiming to be raising money for a COVID-19 cure, or allege to be from a contact-tracing service and are looking for personally identifiable information.

“Contact tracers from the Department of Health are not going to be asking for your Social Security number,” Neronha said.

Another scam impersonates law enforcement or the IRS, and claims to have a warrant out for arrest for outstanding past-due bills. Yet another scam impersonates the Social Security Administration, and claims a Social Security number had been suspended and needs to be reactivated. In reality, the Social Security Administration does not suspend numbers and the call is intended to extract that private information. In most scams that ask for money, the scammer will ask their victim to purchase gift cards and then have them read the number on the card to them over the phone.

“A gift card is as good as cash,” Carlino said. “If you write a check, you can always cancel that check before it’s cashed. If you give a gift card to somebody over the phone, they use that gift card almost immediately and that money is gone. The gift card company is not going to reimburse you like a credit card company would.”

Some stores and pharmacies have a limit to the amount of gift cards that can be purchased in one day in order to halt fraudulent uses, but scammers may request their victim buy cards from multiple locations to circumvent this safeguard.

“I’ve seen that a lot, where people have lost thousands of dollars because they went out and emptied their bank accounts buying gift cards for iTunes or Amazon,” Carlino said. “They’ll instruct them where to go, and walk them through step by step, and stay on the phone with them while they go to all these stores.”

Hard to track

No legitimate company, agency or service will ask someone to pay for something by telephone with a gift card, Neronha said. If it is uncertain whether the phone call is legitimate, Carlino suggests looking up an official number for that company or agency instead.

“You can always ask the person for their name or extension and then go and look up the number for that company yourself online,” he said. “Call the company at a number you know is legitimate and try to get a hold of that person.”

Although there are scams claiming to be law enforcement, such as county sheriffs, Carlino said he has not heard of one that impersonates Jamestown police. Both Carlino and Neronha, however, have received scam phone calls themselves, which they hang up on once they realize it was fake or a robocall.

Potentially fraudulent numbers sometimes also can be identified by caller ID services on both landline and cellular phones. Due to the high volume of scam calls, Neronha encouraged Rhode Islanders not to accept calls from numbers they do not recognize.

“My advice to people is just don’t answer it or let it go to voicemail,” Neronha said. “If someone leaves a voicemail, call them back.”

The origins of most scam calls are unclear, Neronha said, but a majority of them operate outside the United States. It also is unclear how scammers obtain numbers to call. Because the operators are outside the country, it is difficult for law enforcement to track, identify and capture scammers. In some instances, scammers are based in countries that do not have extradition agreements with the United States. As a result, the emphasis for Nerohna’s office is on awareness of scams.

“The best defense is a good consumer awareness program,” he said. “Awareness education is really critical to stopping these scams from taking advantage of people.”

Carlino said people who believe they have fallen victim to a scam should call his department to report the incident, and they will try to investigate. Due to the difficulty in tracking fraudulent gift card transactions, however, the money lost may not be recoverable. Neronha’s office said reporting calls is a good way to raise awareness.

“If for some reason, you have given information out or have wired money, we can help give advice as to what steps you can take to mitigate the damage,” he said. “If we haven’t heard of that scam already, that’s more knowledge we can share with others.”