GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ) – The 2020 presidential election is virtually impossible to ignore – but voters aren’t the only ones paying attention to the race. Scammers are using phony political fundraising calls to pull in donations to their favorite candidates…themselves.
“Make sure that if you want to donate to a candidate, you’re donating to a legitimate source,” said Susan Bach of the Better Business Bureau, “Scammers use technology to spoof your caller ID, so that’s why people really can’t believe their caller ID if it says that the Biden or the Trump campaign is calling them.”
It’s important to screen your calls, and search any unknown numbers on Google or via whitepages.com to see if you can find the legitimate source or owner of that number.
“If you screen your phone calls, you do a little investigation and a reverse search of that phone number, that’s one way that you can help ensure that it’s a legitimate person calling you,” Bach told WTAQ News. “Don’t wait for those candidates to call you, because they may not be legitimate. If you really want to donate, just proactively go to that candidate’s website and make a donation.”
Another great way to identify a potential scammer – and to avoid marketing calls in general – is to sign up for the Do Not Call Registry.
“That’s not going to help prevent scammers from calling you, but it will reduce the number of legitimate marketing calls you receive. Which will, in turn, make it easier to identify the fraudulent ones,” Bach explained.
To learn more about how to avoid robocall scams, read BBB.org/RoboCall.
If you’ve been the victim of a robocall scam, report it on the BBB.org/ScamTracker. By doing so, you can help others protect themselves from falling prey to similar scams. Learn how to avoid them at BBB.org/AvoidScams.
Comments