NEWBURYPORT — Local police are encouraging residents to be wary of a phone scam targeting people's bank accounts after seeing a rise in such calls over the last month.
Newburyport City Marshal Thomas Howard said that people claiming they are from notable banking institutions have been calling residents and asking for personal information. In some cases, scammers are telling victims that they have overdrawn their checking accounts and are asking for funds to cover the difference.
"We still continue to find people willing to provide their information to these callers," Howard said.
Scammers have often targeted the elderly, but younger residents have also been victimized, he said.
"Once that money is transmitted, it's virtually impossible for us to get their money back," Howard said.
A big hurdle for police in combating the problem is getting an accurate fix on the number of victims, since they often are reticent to admit they were taken by a scammer.
"In some cases, people are embarrassed to call, so we're not even sure how large an issue it could be," Howard said.
That the elderly are a target of such a scam doesn't come as a surprise to Newburyport Council on Aging director Roseann Robillard.
"Certainly, we're very concerned about vulnerable residents and caution them always not to divulge any personal information, especially if they did not initiate the phone call," Robillard said.
Should anyone question the validity of the phone call, they are encouraged to call Robillard or the police department.
"Just, better safe than sorry," Robillard said.
In some cases, criminals base their phony pitches on banking commercials they see on television or news reports and then tailor them to dupe unsuspecting people. Among the pitches Howard said are used is that a criminal will see a news story about a security breach at a financial institution and then call a victim pretending to be a representative of that company. The scammer will then convince a victim to hand over their account information to remedy the security breach. But Howard reminded residents that banks will not ask people for PIN numbers or account numbers.
"We're getting a lot of phone calls, and clearly, we're not the only community," Howard said.
Amesbury police crime prevention officer Thomas Hanshaw said that his community has been spared the kind of calls plaguing Newburyport. Instead, Amesbury police are constantly dealing with scams emanating from other countries. And, as in Newburyport, victims are of all ages, from the elderly to younger people desperate for work or money and who let their guard down.
"But they can't," Hanshaw said.
Hanshaw said that scammers will sometimes say they are a representative from a person's bank and then wait until the victim divulges the actual name of their bank before diving into a scam.
As in Newburyport, Amesbury victims are often too embarrassed to call police. Hanshaw said he understood the tendency to keep silent but added that every phone call to police helps them prevent future crimes.
"And that's important," Hanshaw said.
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