Reports are coming out of another round of robocall scams in which people are receiving automated robocalls that purport to be coming from your bank or credit card company.  Using various excuses, such as the need to verify your information for security purposes, you are asked to provide your credit card number, expiration date, security code, PIN and your telephone number.  People falling for this scam end up becoming a victim of identity theft.

TIPS

It is easy to determine if a robocall is legitimate or not.  Unless it is from a charity, it is a scam.  It is illegal for anyone or any business other than a charity or a political candidate to call you by way of an automated robo call.  However, whenever you receive a call that asks for personal information, regardless of whether or not the call is made automatically or there is a real person on the other end of the line, you can never be sure if the person calling you is who they say they are.  Even if your caller ID indicates that the call is from your bank or another legitimate source, it is easy for an identity thief to “spoof” a legitimate source and make it look like the call is coming from your bank or another legitimate source when, in fact it is coming from an identity thief.  Never give personal information over the phone, internet, email or text message unless you are absolutely sure that the person to whom you are providing the information is legitimate.  The only way to do this is to not respond to the original communication, but to hang up and then call the real person, agency or institution at a number that you know is correct in order to confirm whether or not the first call was a scam.  Almost always you will find out that it was, indeed, a scam.