NJ State Police Seeks Help Locating Missing Woman in New Jersey
October 11, 2023Lovisa at the Ocean County Mall
October 11, 2023
Someone reaches you or calls you and claims to be a relative or close friend. They claim they require cash to get out of trouble. Wait a minute. Is there truly a crisis here? Are your friends or family actually calling you? It might be a con artist/scammer.
Do not believe the voice on the other end of the line, even if it sounds like a family member or friend who is calling or messaging you in need of money. Scammers excel at making it seem real.
According to the
Federal Trade Commission, this is how to confirm the person's identification:
Resist the pressure to react and send money immediately. Hang up — or tell the person you’ll call them right back. If you don’t feel comfortable hanging up, try asking a question only the real person would know the answer to, like “What kind of dog do you have?” or “Where did you spend Thanksgiving last year?”
Use a phone number you know is right to call or message the family member or friend who (supposedly) contacted you. Ask them if they’re really in trouble.
Call someone else in your family or circle of friends, even if the caller said to keep it a secret — or sounds like a loved one. Do that especially if you can’t reach the friend or family member who’s supposed to be in trouble. A trusted person can help you figure out whether the story is true. How Scammers Convince You
The scammer may already be quite knowledgeable about you or the person they are posing as. They might be aware of your name, address, and other particulars thanks to social media sites or email hacking of a relative. They also occasionally just guess.
Scammers may pose as a "authority figure," such as a phony lawyer, police officer, or doctor who works with a member of your family. They do it to sound more credible and in an effort to frighten you.
Some scammers replicate your loved one's voice using artificial intelligence (AI). A voice-cloning program and a brief audio clip could be used by a scammer to phone you and impersonate a member of your family.
