FARMINGTON – If you get a phone call or an e-mail from someone asking for personal identification, credit card or banking information, don’t give it out. That’s the advice from police.
At least two senior citizens in New Sharon have been contacted by phone within the last few weeks and asked for Social Security and personal identification numbers, Franklin County Sheriff Detective Tom White said Tuesday.
What concerns him, White said, is it’s localized and the fact that there have been several calls.
Normally, if someone working a scam doesn’t succeed in one area, they move on, he said.
Banks or credit unions would not ask for personal information over the phone, he said. Franklin Savings Bank Security Officer Dee LaPlant concurred, saying bank representatives would not ask for that information over the phone or in an e-mail.
The bank already has people’s personal information because they gave it when they opened an account with the bank, she said.
If something happens to that information, LaPlant said, banking representatives would send a letter to the customer on bank stationery and ask them to to go the bank to provide the information.
“We get a few calls where people give out their information and then think about it and call us,” LaPlant said. “We then close out their accounts.”
Banks have been dealing with several scams, including people being told they’ve won the lottery, LaPlant said, and they end up sending their own money and losing it.
LaPlant said she thinks the trend of people scamming others out of money is increasing.
“It’s not staying the same. It’s not getting better,” she said. “It comes in spurts.”
The bank received three phone calls Monday, she said, with people asking questions about legitimacy of proposals.
White, a county senior citizen resource officer, said that if anyone is contacted by someone wanting banking information or personal information, they should not give it out, and instead call the Sheriff’s Department at 778-2680.
Comments are no longer available on this story