The News Gram received calls from two residents who had received suspicious calls including one from individuals pretending to be process servers looking to serve legal documents to the resident.
A caller reached out to the individual - at least two times - supposedly looking to serve them with legal documents out of the Maverick County Judicial Court System.
The News Gram looked into the validity of the callers claim and found inconsistencies in the manner the caller was attempting to get the resident to fall into their scam.
The caller gave the resident a case number which was not valid and was persistent in trying to obtain personal information while they attempted to intimidate the resident with legal action against them.
At some point the caller left a message stating that they had a court case number and a specific time to serve the resident.
The News Gram, along with the resident, visited the Maverick County District Clerks Office and found that the caller's modus operandi is not a procedure used by the courts to serve anyone.
Another problem in the callers action was an inconsistency in their case number.
While local court cases have a total of 9 digits in their case numbers, the one given by the caller had only 4.
The caller also stated that they had the individual’s social security number on file and according to information obtained from local process servers, no court case is processed by a person’s social security number.
The entire ordeal turned out to be a scam.
Community residents are asked to be careful when receiving calls from unknown numbers and to please not give out any personal information over a phone call or text.
The Federal Trade Commission has a website set up to report such scammers.
They can be found at www.ftccomplaintassistant. gov.
As we near the months of September and October, which are the beginning of open enrollment for Medicare and Medicaid along with their supplemental insurance programs, we will see an increase in scam and fraud calls to elderly individuals.
Another individual reported that they received such call. Luckily the individual did not give out any personal information to the caller.
It is important that people be aware of scam calls and fraud calls and report them to the proper authorities. Never give out personal information to persons if they cannot verify where they are calling from.