Body and Soul

At 8 a.m. this morning, I received a hoax phone call that you should be warned against.

A recording of an authoritative-sounding male voice identified himself as from Social Security. He claimed that Social Security is “taking legal action” against me for making fraudulent claims, and threatened that I would be arrested.

Knowing the call to be fraudulent, I immediately hung up the phone.

This is what Social Security’s Inspector General wants you to know about phone calls like the one I received:

The Acting Inspector General of Social Security, Gale Stallworth Stone, is urging citizens to remain vigilant of telephone impersonation schemes that exploit the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) reputation and authority.

The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) continues to receive reports from across the country about fraudulent phone calls from people claiming to be from SSA.  Recent reports have indicated that unknown callers are using increasingly threatening language in these calls.  The callers state, due to improper or illegal activity with a citizen’s Social Security number (SSN) or account, a citizen will be arrested or face other legal action if they fail to call a provided phone number to address the issue.  This is a scam; citizens should not engage with these calls or provide any personal information.

SSA employees do contact citizens, generally those who have ongoing business with SSA, by telephone for customer-service purposes.  However, SSA employees will never threaten you for information; they will not state that you face potential arrest or other legal action if you fail to provide information.  In those cases, the call is fraudulent, and you should just hang up.

“Unfortunately, scammers will try anything to mislead and harm innocent people, including scaring them into thinking that something is wrong with their Social Security account and they might be arrested,” Stone said.  “I encourage everyone to remain watchful of these schemes and to alert family members and friends of their prevalence.  We will continue to track these scams and warn citizens, so that they can stay several steps ahead of these thieves.”

The OIG recently warned that some of these impersonation calls have “spoofed” SSA’s national customer service phone number, displaying 1-800-772-1213 as the incoming number on caller ID.

The Acting Inspector General urges citizens to be extremely cautious, and to avoid providing information such as your SSN or bank account numbers to unknown persons over the phone or internet unless you are certain of who is receiving it.  If you receive a suspicious call from someone alleging to be from SSA, you should report that information to the OIG at 1-800-269-0271 or online at https://oig.ssa.gov/report.

For more information, please visit https://oig.ssa.gov/newsroom/scam-awareness.  For media inquiries, please contact Andrew Cannarsa, OIG’s Communications Director, at (410) 965-2671.

I immediately filed a report of the scam call, including the caller’s phone number: https://oig.ssa.gov/report

Always remember this:

Never ever give out personal information such as your SSN or bank account/credit card numbers to unknown persons over the phone or internet unless you are certain of who is receiving it.

Elderly people especially are susceptible to scams like this fake phone call from Social Security because the elderly tend not to be savvy and up-to-date on IT and technology. Their physical fragility also makes the elderly emotionally fragile and vulnerable.

Evil people who perpetrate scams like this should be summarily executed.

~E

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