Scammers using fake phone numbers to target elderly and disabled


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SALT LAKE CITY — More and more scammers are passing off other people's phone numbers as their own to steal your money.

That's what a Utah woman learned when someone called her up and promised her a medical alert system , completely free. I received a fax at home from some company called "Fast Working Capital."

It's illegal because I've never done business with this company, and surely I'll never do business with a company that starts out illegally.

But it came with a phone number, indicating where the fax came from. Trouble is, it's a disconnected phone number.

The number is "spoofed." Whoever sent this simply changed the number to anything they wanted so I could not easily find them and it's called "phone spoofing."

It's a great way for con artists to hide, while trying to cheat us, and it's perfectly legal.

"I just want to catch this person," said Annette Balser.

In less than two weeks, Balser got at least five phone calls from an outfit saying her personal medical alert system was ready for delivery — all paid for including the shipping.

Balser let KSL-TV listen in on one of the messages:


Looks like you're getting the system because either yourself, or a friend, or a family member or even someone you know, has experienced a fall in the past. Again, it's already been paid for, so there's no cost to you whatsoever.

–Message from scammer left for Annette Balser


"Looks like you're getting the system because either yourself, or a friend, or a family member or even someone you know, has experienced a fall in the past," the message said. "Again, it's already been paid for, so there's no cost to you whatsoever."

"I think they target older people," Balser said.

Indeed, warnings are out across the country that scammers are calling up the elderly and disabled about a free medical alert system. Only it's far from being free.

People have been tricked into a $40 a month bill. Others have had their bank or credit card information, even Social Security numbers, pried out of them by con artists.

"This would be a nightmare for my husband me, if we had done it," she said.

Balser couldn't get the name or company behind those phone calls. But her caller ID showed various call-back numbers so she tried calling back.

"Every time he called, I called that back and just clicks off," Balser said. "Obviously bogus."

Computer forensics expert Trent Leavitt says that these scammers often use different numbers.

"That's a very common thing if someone is spoofing you over and over," he said. "They won't use the same number twice."

Leavitt says scammers love the anonymity of what's called phone spoofing. They use software to alter the name and number showing up on your caller ID when they call.

"They can call back again, saying they're a completely different organization trying to gather more information from you over the course of two or three months — they get enough information you're now a victim of identity theft," Leavitt said.

And phone spoofing is easy. There are several websites that show you just how to hide your phone number.

KSL-TV tried one of them. All we needed to do was enter the number we wanted to call, in this case a KSL producer. The bogus number we wanted her caller ID to say in this case was 444-444-4444.

Then the website told us to dial their number, and within 15 seconds, Kristine got the call.


"They can call back again, saying they're a completely different organization trying to gather more information from you over the course of two or three months — they get enough information you're now a victim of identity theft." Trent Leavitt, computer forensics expert

Instead of our real number, the bogus number with all those 4's we entered shows up. And while it's easy to place a spoofed phone call, it's much more harder to trace one.

Leavitt saws if you want to find the caller, you'll likely need to hire a lawyer and subpoena all the spoofing companies.

"But the amount of time, money and effort it takes to do something like that, you have to be very determined - it has to be altering your life to where you can't conduct your daily life for someone to go to that extent," Leavitt said.

So why is spoofing legal?

Police, collection agencies and call centers have used spoofing services for years. And you can too — as long as you stick to certain conditions:

"If you're threatening anyone, if you're intimidating anyone, if you're trying extract information on false pretenses, then it becomes a federal offense," Leavitt said.

A federal offense that comes with a $10,000 fine attached.

Still, that didn't dissuade the scammer who pushed the free medical alert system on Balser.

"I just see some older couple buying into this, and possibly losing any savings they have," Balser said.

So if you get those aggravating junk calls supposedly from your credit card company, or your insurance company with that caller ID return number, it's spoofed.

Sure enough, they'll start asking for a bunch of personal information in an effort to steal your identity.

State and federal enforcers generally do not make tracking them down a huge priority, until after someone loses their money. And by that time the number is disconnected and the thief vanishes.

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Bill Gephardt

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