A scam that has surfaced recently in Florida is sure to make its way around the country.  Florida, as all states do, licenses many professions including lawyers, real estate agents, doctors and many more professions.  It is easy to get the names of such professionals from public sources.  Scammers are emailing these professionals purporting to be from the state licensing board informing them that there is a complaint against them.  The potential victim is then told to contact a department investigator to discuss the matter.  Those falling for the scam are asked by the scammer to confirm their personal information such as their Social Security number.  Anyone who does this will end up becoming a victim of identity theft because once the identity thief has the victim’s Social Security number it is an easy matter to use that to use it for identity theft purposes.

TIP

Always safeguard your Social Security number.  Never give it out unless you must and make sure that the person you are giving it to is legitimate.  In this particular case if you recveive such an email you should contact your state licensing board, not at the telephone number contained in the email, but at a telephone number that you know is correct to confirm whether or not the email is a scam.