THIS INFORMATION WAS PROVIDED TO ASSIST EL PASO RESIDENTS WITH SCAM
DETECTION INFORMATION
SCAM PAGE
Financial Crimes Unit
911 N. Raynor
El Paso, TX 79903
PHONE: (915) 564-7130
FAX: (915) 564-7179
REMINDER:
Scams are becoming more and more common throughout the world. Scams take
place by use of the U.S. Mail, E-mails, telemarketers, internet sites, door to door
sales and newspaper ads to name a few. The scams listed on this page have
taken place in the El Paso area and are provided for public awareness.
COMMON SCAMS:
LOTTERY: Unsolicited contact stating you won a substantial prize in a national
lottery and are to send money to pay administration fees and taxes. Solicitor
usually requests money sent via Western Union.
INTERNET AUCTION: Misrepresentation of a product advertised for sale
through an internet auction site and solicit payment by means of Western Union
(E-bay and PayPal will not solicit a method of payment).
PHISHING/PHARMING: E-mail appears to be from a credible company and a
requests to update account information. These scams are also sent via text
messages to cell phones.
ADVANCE FEE: Share a huge sum of money in return for using your bank
account to transfer money out of the country.
COUNTERFEIT CHECK: You receive a check in the mail. You are asked to
deposit the money into your account and then immediately send a portion of the
proceeds via money order to a particular location. These checks are fake and the
bank will hold you responsible. Common scam with “Secret Shoppers”.
WORK AT HOME: Often advertised as paid work from home. After application,
they are hired and given a check and instructed to cash the check and send
some money back. Returned money is to pay for materials and later, the victim
learns the check was fake to begin with.
PYRAMID SCHEME: Invitation to sign up to a money-making club. You pay a
small joining fee and must invite a specified number of other people to join in
order to claim your reward.
MONEY LOANS: Offers fast money without formal credit checks. Told your loan
is approved but you need to pay costs via a money transfer.
JOB SCAMS: Fake Jobs are posted on Monster.com, Craigslist,
CareerBuilder.com and other legitimate websites so the public assumes that
since the websites are creditable, that the job is also safe. Where in fact these
websites don’t check or verify any of the jobs that are posted.
CREDIT CARD SECURITY QUESTION: A caller will say they are from your
credit card company and are investigating fraudulent charges. The caller asks
for the three to four digit security numbers on back to verify you have the card.
Credit card companies will never ask for information printed on the card since
they issued it.
In an effort to verify whether or not the transaction may or may not be a
scam ask the “seller” for a name, a return number and physical address.
Many times this information can be verified using different means i.e.;
Google maps, White Pages.com, etc.
These are some of the most frequent scams occurring in our area. If you
become aware of another scam please contact the Financial Crimes Unit so
that we can update this page.
