The Federal Trade Commission has a website devoted to your identity, your privacy, safeguarding both, and steps to take when either is compromised. It includes limiting unwanted calls and email, computer security, online safety, and identity theft.
IdentityTheft.gov - Reporting and recovering from identity theft
U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Board provides valuable resources for a variety of financial questions, including steps to take when you believe your accounts have been hacked.
Scammers will call and text phone numbers randomly looking for working numbers and humans to scam. Do not answer the call or reply to the texts. Doing so let's them know they have a working phone number and a real person on the other end.
There are scams where callers record your voice saying innocuous things like "hello", "yes", or your name and then splice them into a doctored voice recording of you giving your consent to something.
There are also scams where they pretend to be the IRS, Florida Power & Light, or any number of other agencies. Scammers can even spoof their number so that they send false information to your caller ID showing the real name and/or number for the organization they are impersonating. Scammers will often spoof their number to one from your area code so it appears as a local number.
The National Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint at this Website. You can register your home or mobile phone for free.
|
|
|
