Oklahoma State Attorney General Mike Hunter has warned Oklahomans to be aware of phone calls from scam artists claiming the be with the Social Security Administration(SSA) and attempting to steal social security numbers along with money.
The scam will normally involve the con artist telling individuals that their social security number has been suspended due to suspicious activity, or because it has been involved in a crime. The scammers will proceed to request the victim to confirm their social security number in order to reactivate it. In other instances, scammers will tell the victims that bank account is about to be seized. The scammers then tell the victim that in order to keep said account safe, the individual needs to put money on a gift card and give them the codes.
Attorney General Hunter said that scam phone calls are extremely hard to trace and that the best course of action is to hang up the phone. . Hunter also said that actual authorities with the SSA will never call an individual requesting information or money over the phone. In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission reported complaints about fake social security calls were up nearly 1,000 percent compared to the previous year, costing Americans $10 million. In the last two weeks, the attorney general’s consumer unit has received 13 complaints regarding the scam.
The FTC offers the following tips to avoid being taken advantage of by a scam: Ignore the calls. The SSA will NEVER call to threaten your benefits or tell you that you need to wire money, send cash or put money on gift cards. Anyone who tells you to do so is a scammer every time. So don’t be fooled by a caller ID showing the SSA’s real number that is 1-800-772-1213.
