Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder told a news conference yesterday that these crooks call up posing as employees of banks, credit card companies or even the Internal Revenue Service seeking bank or credit card account numbers or Social Security numbers.
"They may say things like, 'I'm with your bank. We've got Y2K problems here at the bank and we need your account number so we can move your money into a special account or bond fund to protect it while we fix the problem,'" Holder said. "Or, I'm from your credit card company. Your credit card's magnetic stripe is not Y2K compliant and we need your credit card number for verification so we can send you a new magnetic stripe to put over the old one.'"
"These schemes are just dressing up old-fashioned telemarketing fraud in high-tech clothing," Holder said. "We have not seen a major upswing in the numbers of complaints about Y2K fraud, but we are anticipating that as we get closer to the end of this year more criminals will try to con consumers."
The Webpages describe how telephone frauds are presented and provide advice how to react and how to report them to authorities.
The pages can be found at www.usdoj.gov under the heading "what's new."
11-19-99
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