In the past few weeks I have been receiving cryptic calls from an organization going by NRC for a Wayne Aho, first asking me to call, then telling me it was for a bad debt. Finally I called them back, but only got a voice mail. I left the message that I was not aware of any bad debt and if they wanted they could mail me the information. I left my address. (Probably a dumb idea, but it's all in the phone book and seemed innocuous.)
The calls kept coming. Now saying there was a "huge claim." I called again, and spoke to "Jesse." I explained that my name was not Wayne Aho. Jesse then asked for the last four digits of my social security number "for confirmation." I refused to give the information. She hung up on me.
So I called back and asked why she hung up. She replied very brusquely that "We are doing a background check. Are you ready to cooperate?" I said that no, I wasn't going to give any information until I found out what this was all about. She said: "Fine, I've got another call." Then she hung up again.
Identity thieves. I was angry, so reported them to the Consumer Protection Agency, the FTC and the Utah Attorney General. They confirmed my suspicions--that this was a common scam. So common that unless they get a bunch of complaints about the same outfit they don't bother to follow-up.
The world's a dangerous place when thieves can prowl about so openly. I'd rather take my chances with Ali Babba.
Yikes! I recently had an issue at the restaurant with people calling and trying to coax my cashiers into giving them company information. They were trying to get at the company bank account number and routing number. They called about a dozen times, only spoke Spanish, and refused to provide an English-speaking person to help me at least attempt to understand why I should give them the requested information. I had to threaten a police report to get them to stop. It surprised me at how pushy and persistent they were, manipulative too.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to believe that this stuff happens so commonly.