Atlantic Co. Prosecutor Warns of Phone Scam Using Their Number
If the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office calls you and requests money for bail for a loved one being held in jail, you should be know that you are being scammed. This warning comes from...the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office.
Yeah, that's right. The scammers are using the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office number to run their phone scam. It's hard to know who to trust these days, isn't it?
Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon Tyner announced Thursday that several members of the public had complained that they have received a call from the ACPO’s phone number—609-909-7800– and the caller requested money and stated that a family member is in jail and needs bail money.
The Better Business Bureau warns that this practice is becoming very common with scammers.
This phenomenon is called “neighbor spoofing” and it's a caller ID spoof strategy being used by phone scam artists in an attempt to get people to answer the phone. ... Neighbor spoofing uses a spoofed caller ID to trick a person into thinking somebody local, possibly even someone they know, is calling.
Con artists and robocallers use technology to modify what phone numbers appear on caller ID, impersonating phone numbers from neighbors, friends and local businesses to try to get you to answer the call. In many instances, it is a random number with the same area code and first three digits as your own phone number. In other cases, the number displays as coming from a local business or person with whom you’ve previously communicated.
Answering one of these caller ID-spoofed calls will indicate to the robocaller that you have an active phone line. Active phone lines are valuable to phone scammers and will often put you on what is referred to as a “sucker list,” potentially opening your phone line up to more scam calls.
The (real) Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office wants you to know their phone number is not being used for solicitations for money to pay for a family member’s bail. Also, money bail is no longer required for release from jail.