The man with a foreign accent, obviously calling from a very noisy call center, informed me that I had been selected to receive a federal grant of $9,200!!!!! How exciting! All I need do is forward a "processing fee" of $250 and I would receive this exciting grant. I told him that he should just take the $250 out of the grant money and send me the balance of $8,950. He said they could not proceed with the grant processing until I sent the money. I told him that I could not pay the processing fee until I got the grant money. He once again explained that they cannot process the grant until I forward the processing fee. I once again told him I could not pay the processing fee until I got the grant money. I figured that the more of his time I wasted the fewer people he would have an opportunity to scam today. The problem is, there must be enough people that fall for this bs because they keep making calls. But I was bored today and decided to annoy someone and he was the next in line call-wise!
I am so tired of getting these scam calls. I had the lady repeat herself a couple of times because I didn't understand her accent, everything she was saying. Finally, I asked what I had to do for the $9,200 and she hung up. Can't something be done about these calls? It's sad that instead of earning money legally from a job, they are successfully scamming some people.
About all you can do is invest in a call blocker. ALso do not pick up on call numbers you don't recognize. You might want to block the entire area code 202. Area code 202 is favored by a lot iof Indian and Pakistani scammers.
I receive calls from these people a few times a week for a while, then they go silent for a week or two and the cycle continues. This scam was actually identical to one identified on the Dr. Phil Show recently. I have a recorded conversation between myself and one of the scammers. They specifically said they represent the federal government and it seems to me that a statement like that MUST be a crime. I did forward the information to my local news but I wasn't interested in being on camera so there was no further investigation. The scam is for the same grant that Carolyn describes. The caller ID says Washington, DC. HOW IS IT NOT A CRIME TO SAY YOU ARE REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT??? I can see people falling for this specifically because they believe no scammer would call from Washington DC pretending to be with the government. What can be done to stop these people before innocent citizens are robbed of their savings? DR. PHIL.............HELP!!!
It is a crime but since the callers are from India or Pakistan or some other country, they would need to be identified and extradited from their country to be prosecuted here.