MONROE — Police are warning of a phone scam after receiving several complaints from city residents this week.
The caller claims to be from the Social Security Administration and advises the recipient that their social security number has been suspended due to suspicious activity. If the call recipient returns the call or follows the caller’s instructions, the caller then asks for the person's social security number.
The calls are a scam.
“First, the Social Security Administration would not call in such a manner; you would receive mail from them. Second, they would already know your social security number, so they should be able to tell you what it is to confirm, not ask you for it,” according to a release from the Monroe Police Department on Thursday, Sept. 5.
The police department is telling anyone who receives similar calls not to call the number back and to never to give out sensitive information such as social security or bank account numbers.
The scam calls can be reported to local law enforcement, however, “unfortunately these calls are difficult to investigate locally because they are likely calls originating from outside the country.”
Even federal agencies have difficulty investigating this type of phone fraud because “often these countries do not have agreements with the U.S. to investigate these crimes.”
“Really, the safest method is to never trust phone calls like this,” the release stated.