DEA issues warning about impersonation scam
By Greg Collier
The Drug Enforcement Agency issued a warning about scammers posing as their agents and demanding money. One of the more popular versions of the scam has the scammers calling their victims and accusing the victims of being involved in a crime. The scammers will even spoof a DEA phone number while telling their victim that someone rented a car using the victim’s identity and the car was found to have drugs in it near the Mexican border.
The phony agents will threaten the victim with arrest if the victim doesn’t pay a fine. As with the majority of scams, the scammers will ask for payment of the imaginary fine in nontraditional ways like gift cards or money transfer. This is because these methods of payment are largely untraceable.
Another version of the scam has scammers calling their victims claiming that the victim’s bank account has been compromised by criminals. The scammers then instruct the victim to send them money in order to assist them with their investigation.
These scammers will often target medical professionals as well. The scammers will threaten doctors and providers with arrest claiming that someone used the doctor’s identity to write illegal prescriptions.
In their warning, the DEA states that they would never call someone demanding payment and threatening arrest. This also goes for virtually all law enforcement agencies.
If you receive a call from one of these scammers, you’re asked to report it to the FBI at http://www.ic3.gov/.
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