Law enforcement: Watch for telephone scams

By Brian M. Boyce
The Tribune-Star

TERRE HAUTE March 27, 2008 11:00 pm

— Scam artists are on the prowl from around the world, and law enforcement advises that education is the best defense.
“I don’t think we’re really getting a lot more here than other areas, but I think the people down here are a lot more aware because we put out a lot of information on this,” remarked Michael Hasler, chief deputy with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department.
Hasler issued a report on the latest in a number of ongoing attempts at obtaining a Wabash Valley resident’s financial information, this time with the alleged scam artist posing as an employee of the Indiana State Auditor’s Office.
Hasler said a Bloomfield business owner was recently called from a blocked number, and the caller claimed to be with the state Auditor’s Office and that it needed bank account, identification and other information on the business for tax purposes.
But when asked to provide a phone number at which they could be called back, the caller refused.
Hasler noted that most business transactions done with government agencies occur through the mail and a live human with name and title is on the other end of the phone call.
“They never really know who they’re calling, but they like to prey on the elderly,” Hasler noted, explaining that sometimes they’ll claim to be a collection agency and threaten litigation or credit damage if payment is not made over the phone.
“A lot of them actually generate out of foreign countries where U.S. laws don’t apply,” he said. “I know the United States Postal Service has made this a priority.”
Eddy Boucher, a team leader of postal inspectors with the Postal Service, said “this time of year, with tax returns, that’s common.”
Boucher said once account information is accessed, it can be handled from any location on Earth.
“Right now, the most dominant scam involves the West African countries,” noting a variety of plots and stories that the scam artists use ranging from helping expatriates transfer funds to endangered people needing relocation, to mail-order brides. “We’re really getting hit a lot with that kind of scam.”
Boucher explained that the mechanism for the deal usually involves funneling counterfeit money into an American bank account and cashing it back. This gives the thief the balance of the person’s legitimate money and crashes the American’s account with the negative load.
Hasler said the federal government has been pushing harder on the subject since the Sept. 11 attacks, as a number of the scam artists are actually using the stolen money to fund terrorist activities in Africa and the Middle East.
“There’s nothing better than to use U.S. dollars against the U.S.,” he said.
Boucher said printing mills that generate counterfeit bills are located around the world and that cybercafes are used by West Africans to troll the Internet searching for online advertisements such as those on eBay and other classifieds.
If they can arrange a sale on the Internet, they can sometimes pay for the item with the counterfeit money, funneling it through a wired account, he said.
Boucher said the Postal Service recently seized more than $1 million in counterfeit documents in a one-week bust in Indianapolis. The money was en route to locations throughout America, he said.
Education is the best defense, both said.
“There’s a really good educational campaign going out on the Web,” Boucher said, noting www.fakechecks.org.
Both Boucher and Hasler said residents who think they’re being approached by a scam artist should get as much information on the caller as possible and give it to local law enforcement, who will in turn contact federal authorities.
“They used to have so many at the federal level that they just couldn’t keep up with them,” Hasler said, but ever since the stolen funds were linked with terrorism, more efforts have been made at tracking what he called “front numbers” that actually forward to overseas lines.
And in the event that an individual’s money is stolen, the chances of getting it back are slim, he said.
“I know we got hit really hard by a bunch that started out of Canada,” he recalled, noting that the farther out of America the cyberthieves go, the harder it is to track them down, and actually getting the money back is nearly impossible.
Boucher said, “We’ve actually made some arrests overseas with those counterfeit documents,” but he also agreed that prevention is the best course.

Brian Boyce can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or brian.boyce@tribstar.com.