By SANDI LYNN BROWN
The Lebanon Daily News (Pennsylvania)
If somebody calls and offers you a lifetime membership in an ambulance service in exchange for bank-account information, hang up: It’s just the latest scam scheme.
That’s the word from the chief of operations for Lebanon’s First Aid and Safety Patrol.
“We’re just trying to get the word out,” said Dan Bixler.
Bixler said a community member notified FASP that her elderly father had received a phone call from a person seeking donations for the “local EMT service.” The caller offered a lifetime membership for $300, he said.
All the caller wanted was a bank-account number, which the man gave. Fortunately, the daughter was able to close the account before it was accessed, Bixler said.
“First of all, we don’t sell lifetime memberships,” Bixler stressed. “We never, ever want your personal information. And everything we do is through the mail.”
Bixler suggested that anyone who receives suspicious calls should contact police.
Corp. Andrew Wenger of state police at Jonestown said he had not heard of this particular scam before, but that it follows a familiar pattern.
One popular scheme is to tell the victim that he or she is the winner of a lottery in Canada, but that taxes must be paid up front before the jackpot can be delivered. The scammer asks for the victim’s bank-account number.
Of course, there is no jackpot. All the victim gets is a cleaned-out bank account.
Wenger suggested the victim ask that the information about the offer be sent in the mail. A legitimate agency will be willing to do this, he said. Don’t be pressured to make a “snap decision,” he said.
“But certainly don’t give out any information,” Wenger said. “If it is too good to be true, it really isn’t true.”
Also try to record data for the police such as date, time, what was said and a phone number, if the intended victim has caller ID.