Local Man Refuses to Fall Victim to Scam
By John Branton, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
Sep. 12–CHELATCHIE — Howard Cook may live way out in the country, in Clark County’s northeastern corner, but he’s no bumpkin when it comes to scam callers.
Cook, who lives on Yale Bridge Road, said his phone rang on the morning of Sept. 7. A woman with what sounded like an Asian accent, and who didn’t speak English well, told him she worked for the Internal Revenue Service.
“When she asked for my Social Security number, that was the end of it,” Cook said.
He broke it off there and called the IRS and The Columbian.
IRS Special Agent Dan Wardlaw, who is based in Vancouver, said no one with the tax agency would call someone and ask for their Social Security number.
Indeed, employees of the IRS already know taxpayers’ Social Security numbers, said Wardlaw, who serves as the agency’s local spokesman.
The phone call was a scam attempt, and the agency frowns on people who impersonate its personnel, Wardlaw said. He said an investigator would be contacting Cook to see if the call can be traced.
The IRS also recently reported that scam artists around the world have been flooding the Internet with unsolicited e-mails claiming to be from the tax agency.
One version claimed to offer $80 for filling out a “customer satisfaction survey” about the agency. Others claimed the recipient was “under investigation” and needed to answer personal questions.
The spam scammers are seeking folks’ bank account numbers and other personal information to use in identity theft, officials said.
The IRS doesn’t send out such unsolicited e-mails, which end up asking for personal information, and all such e-mails are bogus, officials said.
For more information about recent scams, visit www.columbian.com and, on the light-green horizontal bar near the top, choose News and Crime Watch.
At the bottom of the page, under Links, are several stories about scams targeting Clark County residents.
EAST VANCOUVER Man gets bogus check for lottery he never entered
E-mail scams are the latest big thing, but crooks are still using snail-mail to try and snag your dough.
On Sept. 6, Phil Carson got what looked like a cashier’s check in the mail, claiming he’d won $60,000 in a -European lottery he never entered.
The stamp was from the United Kingdom. The valid-looking “check,” complete with watermark, claimed to be from Trojan Financial Corp, drawn on a Charter Bank in Louisville, Ohio.
The check was made out for $4,875, Carson said. If he would call a number within 10 days, and pay the sender $2,982, Carson would later receive the balance of his winnings, about $55,000.
Police for years have warned Clark County residents about such pitches, which are called advance fee scams.
Scams involving unsolicited, unexpected checks can harm recipients in a few different ways. Had Carson sent or wired the crooks the $2,982 in real money, he would never have seen it again, nor would he have gotten any money at all from the would-be thieves. Had he deposited the “check” in his bank account, and spent any money based on its promises, he later would have learned from the bank that the check turned out to be worthless.
And there’s another way the crooks could win, officials have warned. If Carson had deposited the check — even if he sent or spent no money based on it — the bank could have returned the check to the sender, complete with Carson’s account number. Community watch The following fields overflowed: BYLINETITLE = Columbian staff writer
News of crime in Clark County’s neighborhoods. For reports of major crime, see the Clark County section.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash.
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