After receiving calls from concerned Wyoming residents, the Wyoming Attorney General has issued a report warning consumers about an automated phone call scam.
Wyoming residents have fallen victim to what is believed to be one of the largest uncovered credit card schemes in history. The scam spanned across 28 states and eight countries. At the beginning of February, 18 people were charged for participating in a $200 million dollar fraud ring.
“We’ve received probably around 100 calls on this. We want to warn people so they don’t fall for the scam,” Clyde Hutchings of the Wyoming General Attorney Office said.
The Attorney General’s office says that scammers are calling people seeking information on credit and debit cards to create false cards.
While investigators are looking into the calls, the office urges citizens to not give any personal information out over the phone. Many citizens across Wyoming have dealt with similar scams.
“A few weeks ago my parents were talking about how a lot of the credit card fraud has been targeted in Wyoming,” junior Andrea Ley said. “First my boyfriend got a call and my Dad got an email and I’ve gotten at least three calls. They all just sound really fake. The email that my Dad got had a lot of typos and it was obviously just trying to get information out of everybody.”
Anyone who has concerns or is believed to have suffered from such a scam should get in touch with their card’s financial institution.
Based on reports released in court, the scheme involved creating thousands of fake identities, building up the credit scores of those ‘individuals’ and then racking up charges on falsely obtained credit cards.
While the scam did not target direct individuals, its impact can be felt through increased interest rates and fees in banks.
Based on the Javelin Strategy and Research 2013 Banking Identity Safety Scorecard study, losses totaled from fraud and account takeover rose almost 50 percent from 2011 to 2012.
Other studies confirm that advances in technology have allowed scammers to come up with new ways to commit credit card fraud and left the banks struggling to keep up.
Aside from the somewhat “old school” phone call scam, con artists are also sending out phony texts or emails about account problems and using pirating music or game software as a keystroke logger that wipes passwords and other information from the downloader’s computer.
