Community Alert: Senior Scam

from the 17th District Community Policing Office:

Please be advised that we received word of a senior citizen scam going on in our district.

A caller from the 876 area code called the home of a senior and asked him to verify his personal information (name, age and address) and then inquired about how and where the senior keeps their money (“do you keep money in your home?”) The caller called back again after the senior citizen hung up and blocked the number from showing up on the caller ID, but the number had already been logged during the first phone call. The phone number came back to an unknown location in Jamaica.

If you should receive a strange phone call asking you about your personal information, do not respond. Simply hang up and alert the police. Your bank, credit card companies and legitimate businesses are not going to call you and ask if you have money in your home, or ask you to verify your entire account number, social security number or date of birth. If someone calls and represents themselves as someone you would normally do business with, hang up and call the business back at the phone number on the back of your credit card, or from official mailings or documents you have received from the company in the past (and not the number that the caller gives you, or that shows up on a caller ID or that you have received in emails because those could be scams too. Never click on links in emails if you do not know for sure who the sender is. Always go to the actual website and log into your account to search for the information or to respond to a supposed inquiry, or call the company directly).

Sgt Kristin Munin

017th District Community Policing Office

312-742-4588

312-742-4407 – fax