Yesterday I shared a personal email with you from a Relief
Worker at the Moore, Oklahoma tornado tragedy.
As I said, whenever people are victims of disasters like
this, there are always going to be wolves circling the
sheep, ready to take advantage of the chaos.
Looters… greedy businesses… and Steve!
You see, Steve lives much like you and I do:
He leaves his house about 7:30, and commutes for about
45 minutes on busy highways to his office complex.
He works in a nondescript cubicle in a nondescript
office along with 200 other coworkers.
They chat occasionally, talk about weekends, pets, and
kids.
By about 8:30 you can find him at his desk getting
started with his day. By all appearances, he lives a
pretty normal life for a 34-year old young
professional.
There’s just one critical difference…
Steve makes his living stealing money from American
victims of natural disasters!
Steve is just a name he made up to make him sound more
American.
However, Steve’s company is based in Mumbai, India, a city
of over 20 million people.
Moreover, Steve’s company specializes in one thing: ripping
off gullible Americans.
They tell the authorities they are doing tech support or
Order processing to look legitimate, but they’ve found
something far more lucrative.
And there are dozens of companies just like them. (They even
have an unofficial trade association.)
The managers keep an eye on CNN, the New York Times, and
various local newspapers.
They wait for a tornado, hurricane, or a wildfire, and start
dialing folks in those areas shortly after cleanup begins.
The find everything they need to reach these people in
online, and often free, databases.
Steve, like every single person in the company, has a script
he follows…
* He identifies himself, in flawless English, as an agent
with FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency).
* He expresses sympathy. He offers condolences. He’ll
often go off script though, tell you how he understands
how shattered your life really is. (The little old
ladies in particular go for this tactic. They’re the
most gullible, and after all, Steve is on a
commission.)
* He then congratulates you on receiving an exclusive
FEMA grant. He’ll just need your bank information,
address, social security number, and driver’s license
info to make the instant wire transfer that will change
your life forever.
That part is true; it WILL change their life forever.
That’s when the real work begins. A separate
department gets to work opening credit cards, charge
accounts, and in some cases simply emptying the bank
accounts. That’s when the real devastation begins.
So what’s the lesson?
NEVER NEVER NEVER reveal your information to anyone over the
phone that you don’t know and trust!
Be suspicious of anything that sounds too good to be true.
That may sound like common sense to you, but you’ll be
amazed – especially during a disaster where many are just
looking for ANYONE to help them out – how many fall for
scams like this.
If someone says that they are representing a company you do
business with, hang up and call the number you have for
them.
Make sure your family members, especially the young and the
very old, understand this as well.
IN FACT FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO THEM RIGHT NOW.
Your best bet is to take your name and number off the online
databases so scam artists and Big Business cannot find you
to begin with.
This last one is tricky but can be done in one afternoon
with this new “privacy kit”…
For your sake, and for the sake of your family, go check it
out right now:
This is where I found out about “Steve” and other real life
scams that are being targeted against Americans every day.
Yours in survival,
Jeff Anderson
President, ISCQC