Scammers have been calling area residents claiming to be raising money for veterans – BUT one con artist recently made the mistake of calling an actual veteran – and trying to pull the phony fundraiser bit on HIM. Bad move. The caller said they were collecting money for the Gadsden CBOC, which is a division of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
CBOC stands for Community Based Outpatient Clinic, and the veteran who received that call was already familiar with the facility – and with how scams work, so he wasn’t ready to pull out his checkbook. Instead, he started doing what every scammer hates – he started asking questions. And guess what – they hung up.
Scammers will do anything to catch people off-guard and that includes preying on emotions – most people are more willing to give when they think the money is going to help a child in need or perhaps a member of the armed services and what holiday is coming up? You got it – Veterans Day. Timing is everything.
Make sure that when you give to a deserving cause, it actually GOES TO THAT CAUSE – NOT some con artist whose job description is “thief”.
We’d like to thank that veteran who called us to report the scam attempt so that we, in turn, could pass the information along to others. When we called the number he provided, it was already “out of order”, which is normal in these “hit and run” operations. It makes it more difficult for the perpetrators to be tracked. The next round of calls will simply be from another number. They’ll drop that one, then start all over again using another number and the cycle continues.
