Insurance Scam

There have been reports to the Division of Information Technology (DoIT) that a scammer is calling people and claiming to be from UMBC.The scammer is said to be trying to run an insurance scam and is calling from <14438873438>.  The caller ID shows up as UMBC.

According to usa.gov here are some helpful tips to protect yourself from telephone scams. For more information please see the link below.

• You can register your phone number with the National Do Not Call registry. If you continue to receive telemarketing calls after you register they are most likely scams.

• Be wary of calls claiming that you have won a prize or vacation.

• Hang up or do not answer any suspicious phone calls.

• Be cautious of caller ID as scammers can spoof or change the phone number that appears on the screen.

• Do not give into any pressure from the scammer to take immediate actions.

• Do not say anything if the scammer begins by asking “Can you hear me?” as it is stated that this is a common tactic for scammers to record and have proof of you saying “yes”.

• Do not provide any financial or personal information to the caller.

• Do not send money over the phone especially if the caller asks for it to be wire transferred or with prepaid cards.

The usa.gov article also gives a few links to report telephone scams.

• The Federal Trade Commision (FTC): https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/#/?pid=A 

• The Do Not Call Registry: https://www.donotcall.gov/ 

• The Federal Communications Commision (FCC): https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us 

• You can also report any scam related to UMBC to security@umbc.edu 

What to do now?

If you received this or a similar scam and have provided any banking or financial information, please notify your bank or financial institution immediately. If you have been sent a check, you should not attempt to cash or deposit it. If you have deposited a check already, please contact your bank and tell them that it may be part of a scam.

Whether you responded to the scam or not, please report it to security@umbc.edu. If any part of the scam was through email please provide full email headers as well. We will also keep track of any other information you submit about the scammers, such as their phone numbers. If you were sent a check or other materials, please send pictures of it and the envelope they came in.

For more information from usa.gov please visit:

https://www.usa.gov/common-scams-frauds 

How do I forward full email headers?

https://wiki.umbc.edu/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=1867970 

To read more articles published by DoIT Security please visit: 

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/critical/?tag=notice.    

https://itsecurity.umbc.edu/home/covid-19-news/?tag=covid19