Scammers have been calling area residents claiming to be raising money for veterans, including targeting  actual veterans themselves.

One local veteran received a call from someone pretending to be from CBOC, or the Community Based Outpatient Clinic. However, that veteran was already familiar with the facility, so he wasn’t ready to pull out his checkbook. Instead, he started doing what every scammer hates: he started asking questions.  They quickly 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. With Veterans Day today, scammers know that timing is everything.

Make sure that when you give to a deserving cause, it actually goes to that cause – not to some con artist whose job description is “thief”.

Scammers generally cancel the phone numbers they use after every attempt and move on to a new number; this makes them more difficult to track. 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.

WEIS Radio