It is said that fear and greed control the stock market.  They also control scams as many scams and identity theft schemes prey on one or the other of these emotions.  Recently there has been an upsurge of robocalls from the non-existent “state investigations department” in which you are told that you are the subject of an ongoing investigation.  In some versions of his scam, personal information is then solicited from you.  In other versions of the scam, you are told to wire funds or send a prepaid cash card to resolve the problem.  In all versions of this call, it is a scam.

TIPS

There is no “state investigations department” and robocalls are illegal except for robocalls from political candidates and charities so if you get any other robocall, you should just hang up because the person calling you obviously is already breaking the law.  Also, as I constantly remind you, never give out personal information on the phone to anyone even if your caller ID indicates that the caller is legitimate.  You can never be sure that the person calling you is legitimate.  If you think that the call might be legitimate, you should call the person or agency back at a number that you know is legitimate, not the number that the caller provides you.  Also, be particularly wary when a caller requests that money be sent by prepaid cards such as green dot cards or by wiring funds from your bank because it is impossible to get your money back if you pay someone through these methods.  These are favorite methods of scammers and whenever you are asked to pay in this fashion, you should be skeptical.