|
David
N. Kirkman
|
North Carolina Division of Aging and Adult Services |
 |
|
|
Threatening Calls ******Alert #197 ****** Early last year, a Senior Fraud Alert described threatening emails from people purporting to be hired assassins. They claimed they had been hired to kill the email recipient and that they would abandon their “contract” if the email recipient paid a portion of the “contract” fee. The emails, which originated overseas, were brought to light by the FBI.
Two law enforcement officers in the central part of the state, one local and one federal, report two instances where seniors received telephone calls threatening death or violence if they do not pay money. In one of the incidents, the caller simply demanded that the older adult send money to him, otherwise the older adult would be harmed. There was no claim that the older adult had won anything or owed money to the caller. In the other incident, the caller claimed that the older adult had won an overseas sweepstakes, that he was in a vehicle bringing her a $2 million dollar prize, and that she needed to reimburse him for taxes and other fees he had already paid in her name back in his home country, Jamaica. He wanted her to wire that money to a friend in Jamaica immediately. When she balked, he said that he would kill her when he arrived at her house in about an hour. When she said she was afraid and was heading to her local police department for protection, he threatened to kill her at the police department and then kill all the police too. The caller never arrived at her home or at the police department and probably was not calling from within the U.S. The call was recorded by a law enforcement agent investigating other fraudulent calls to the consumer.
******End of Alert****** June 11, 2008 |
|
NC Senior Consumer Fraud Task Force View Alerts: Federal
Trade Commission Alerts Related links The United States Postal Inspection Service - Watch
|
