A North Shore resident said she received three scam messages within two hours on Friday morning. Lenda Helser, a former educator living in Kilauea, said her phone registered a call from a Washington D.C. area phone number that attempted to
A North Shore resident said she received three scam messages within two hours on Friday morning.
Lenda Helser, a former educator living in Kilauea, said her phone registered a call from a Washington D.C. area phone number that attempted to scare her into initiating a reply call.
“They didn’t mention any names or any affiliation with the federal government,” Helser said.
The “robo call,” the term Helser gave to the recorded messages, changed to a different tone or sound where it inserted her name and appeared to indicate it was a non-human voice, she said. The message was urgent with threats to contact her employer and that actions were pending over allegations of check and bank fraud. “The intent was to get me to call them back,” Helser said. “The message said that in order to avoid appearing in court and stop a federal action that I needed to call by the close of business, today.”
She could only guess at what would happen if she called and assumed it would be a request for money to process the bogus legal protection. It would likely amount to identity theft after scaring credit card information out of her.
Helser, who has a master’s degree and is a retired teacher, said that she didn’t fall for this call but felt there may be others who would. She called the Federal Trade Commission’s Consumer Response Center, and was told it was likely a scam.
