When local grandmother Marjorie Haffner recently received a call from one of her grandkids, she knew something was up.<\/p>\n
She had dealt with this before.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe voice didn\u2019t sound like one of our grandsons,\u201d Haffner said. \u201cHe said, \u2018Grandma, write this down,\u2019 and I asked him, \u2018Who is this?\u2019 He said, \u2018Who else would be calling you grandma?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
What the caller didn\u2019t know is Haffner has 16 grandchildren.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I wouldn\u2019t write anything down until he identified himself,\u201d Haffner said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when he hung up.<\/p>\n
Haffner believes the man was a phone scammer: strangers have impersonated her grandchildren before, often asking for money. Usually it\u2019s a little more sophisticated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just must think we are all ignorant,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of the busiest times of year for phone scams, even in Alaska. Andrea Jacobson, an investigator with the Alaska State Troopers Financial Crimes Unit, estimates that Alaskans are targeted by around 15 phone scams a month, though \u201cnumbers could be way higher than that. Some people are embarrassed to report that they\u2019ve been scammed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobson said she\u2019s not sure if it\u2019s seasonal, but there\u2019s definitely been an uptick in phone scams targeting Alaskans in the past two years, especially on landlines owned by the elderly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a national, widespread issue right now, it\u2019s huge,\u201d Jacobson said. \u201cThey definitely target the elderly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Haffner has received several of these calls in the past couple of years, most of them during the holidays. Other schemes have been more convincing.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne guy said a grandkid was in jail. He was asking for money to help get him out,\u201d Haffner said. \u201cHe knew the name of one of our grandkids, but when I asked him his middle name, he gave me the first name of my husband, which was the wrong answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another caller claimed a grandkid was hurt, and the Haffners needed to send money to help with his recovery. That caller hung up as soon as Haffner said she was recording the call.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of them are pretty sharp,\u201d Haffner said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve never been taken in by any of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recently, the state is dealing with at least two widespread phone scams. One, believed to be a money laundering scheme, has callers impersonating the Publishers Clearing House. According to Jacobson, one Alaskan lost $100,000 to this scheme. Another, an 85-year-old cancer patient, lost $25,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re picking on people who are particularly vulnerable to these scams for various reasons, sometimes they have an ill relative or they\u2019re in a situation that they really need the money,\u201d Jacobson said. \u201cPeople want to believe so badly that they\u2019ve won.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this case, fraudsters will use a call masking technology which allows them to appear as a local numbers. Jacobson\u2019s partner did some digging on one of these calls, finding they used a phone service called Twilio to temporarily buy a local 907 number.<\/p>\n
In another widespread scam (Jacobson cited reports in seven different Alaska cities, including Juneau) fraudsters impersonate Alaska State Troopers, claiming they need payment to keep victims out of jail.<\/p>\n
Callers in these cases will often demand targets buy store bought credit cards from major retailers, and call back with the confirmation number. Jacobson said these scammers will ask that you call them \u201cevery step of the way\u201d to ensure you\u2019re following through \u2014 and not second-guessing \u2014 their demands.<\/p>\n
Jacobson said it\u2019s common, like in Haffner\u2019s case, for callers to instill a sense of urgency in their targets by making up a desperate story. The first thing to do is get off the phone and verify some information.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey usually make it sound pretty realistic. There are some variations: kidnappings, in jail, broken down in a foreign country,\u201d Jacobson said. \u201cIn these cases the most important thing to do is get off the phone and call whomever they say is in trouble, often that will sort everything out. If they are claiming they have an arrest warrant, call the local trooper station. If they are claiming to be a grandchild, call that grandchild.\u201d<\/p>\n
The important thing is to get off the phone and don\u2019t let a caller\u2019s sense of panic push you to give them money, Jacobson said.<\/p>\n
The next step is to report the call to your local police department.<\/p>\n
In addition, the Financial Crimes Unit encourages people to report to the Federal Trade Commission at www.spc.gov or 877 382-4357.<\/p>\n
The AARP also has a fraud network. That can be reached at www.aarp.org\/fraudwatchnetwork or toll free at 800 646-2283. Callers don\u2019t have to be AARP members to call.<\/p>\n
Jacobson said to look out if you\u2019re on a landline as these numbers are easier for scammers to obtain than cellphone numbers. The elderly are the largest remaining demographic of landline owners, making them particularly vulnerable.<\/p>\n
In addition, Jacobson cautioned people to keep track of the information they post on the internet. Scammers can put this to good use in impersonating law enforcement or family members.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Kevin Gullufsen at 523-2228 or kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When local grandmother Marjorie Haffner recently received a call from one of her grandkids, she knew something was up. She had dealt with this before. \u201cThe voice didn\u2019t sound like one of our grandsons,\u201d Haffner said. \u201cHe said, \u2018Grandma, write this down,\u2019 and I asked him, \u2018Who is this?\u2019 He said, \u2018Who else would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-21613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21613\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21613"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=21613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}