You already know exactly what to do in the event of a fire that has spread to your clothes and might burn you. You learned this when you were a child: Stop, Drop, & Roll. Put that fire out.
The same thing goes with scams. We have had clients reach out and ask us if they have been scammed. In many situations, they have been. They weren’t thinking about stopping, dropping, and rolling because they didn’t realize that there was a fire. There are other scams that go after our Social Security numbers, which ss something you need to be very, very cautious about.
There are usually four basic signs of a scam that could affect your social number:
- Scammers will pretend to be an organization or an agency you are familiar with, like the Social Security Administration. You might find that you have been emailed an attachment with official looking logos, seals, signatures, or pictures with what appears to be employee credentials. The Social Security Administration does not send out emails! They will only call you if you’ve requested a call. That should be warning flag number one.
- Scammers will always mention a problem or possibly a prize. They may say that your Social Security number or Credit Card was involved with a crime, or they may ask for your personal information in order to process a benefit increase. Again, Social Security is not going to be reaching out to you via email. It doesn’t happen. Stop, drop, and roll.
- Scammers will insist you act immediately. When you’re all worried, this is the opportunity for them to take advantage of you. They could threaten you with arrest or legal action. This is when you need to stop, and you need to reach out to someone else, and ask: Does this sound like a scam to you? That person will probably tell you to stop, drop, and roll. The Social Security Administration Will Never threaten you with arrest or legal action!
- Scammers will ask you to pay by using things like: gift cards, prepaid debit cards, Crypto currency, a wire, money transfer, or by mailing cash. You will never get these requests from the real Social Security Administration They may also tell you to transfer your money to a “safe account”. Stop, drop, & roll.
Treat scammers as if your clothing has started on fire. Do what you were told to do as a youngster: Stop, drop, and roll. If you have received, what you think is, an official correspondence from the Social Security Administration and/or from your credit card company and it looks a little bit off, contact us. This will not be the first time that we’ve walked clients through the process of finding out if this might actually be a scammer coming after you and your money.
My name is Mark Bertrang, the creator of the Financialoscopy®. If you are not a client, you should consider scheduling your final your Financialoscopy®.
