State College police have received reports of a new twist on a classic scam.
On Tuesday the police department received a call from a man who believed he may have been the victim of an unsuccessful attempt at a phone scam. Although such scams are fairly common, and police have warned residents about them in the past, this one took a new direction.
Police say the scammer was pretending to be a representative from a personal loan agency. The scammer reportedly told the man that he had taken out a $600 a few years prior without paying it back, and that he now needed to pay $1,000 immediately. The man did not fall for the ruse.
Police pointed out that the total amount of the supposed loan didn’t match up with the interest rate the scammer had quoted. Police also say that legitimate organizations do not demand immediate payment, nor will they ask for personally identifiable information such as credit card or social security numbers over the phone.
If you receive such a call and the person on the other end of the line has no official documentation about a loan, and you have no memory of taking the loan out, police say the call is a scam. Other tell-tale signs of scams may include someone asking you to use prepaid credit cards to transfer money.
Other common phone scams include a setup where someone pretends to be a relative who needs bail money to get out of jail, or where someone will pretend to be a relative who is in some kind of danger or trouble and needs money immediately. Sometimes these calls will involve a second scammer pretending to be a lawyer.
Police have previously warned residents of phone scams where someone will pretend to be from the IRS and demand immediate payment of fictional back taxes or fees. Other variations of this idea may include scammers pretending to be local law enforcement officers demanding payment under the threat of arrest.
