Scammers Use Police Phone Number

It’s a new twist to an old scam. Crooks call trying to get a person’s bank account information over the phone, but the caller ID says the call is coming from Colorado Springs Police.

Kelly Matthew got two calls from a woman who said she was with the fraud department.

“She said that my account had been accessed suspiciously,” said Matthew.

Matthew said she suspected it was a scam, and didn’t give her account information. But what really threw her was the number the crook was calling from, 719-444-7000.

“The upsetting thing for me is, it was the police dispatch number that showed up on my caller ID,” she said.

What these scammers are doing is called spoofing, and it’s a lot easier than you might think. With the help of free websites and apps, crooks can fake the number they’re calling you from.

TARGET 13 Investigates used one of those sites and showed Matthew just how easy it was to do exactly what the scammer did and call her from the police dispatch phone number.

“That’s scary that it’s so easy for anyone to do,” she said. “It really is. You don’t even have to be an intelligent thief.”

To avoid becoming a victim, never give out credit card or bank account information over the phone, unless you were the one who initiated the call. Legitimate companies will never call and ask for those details.