Pacific Grove, CA Elder Abuse Alert : Customer Service Scams

AARP Bulletin had an elder abuse alert for our area.  The article profiled a 75-year old man who saw a charge on his credit card that he didn’t recognize for Amazon Prime.  He did a google search for Amazon’s phone number and called the number, which turned out to be fake.  They asked him to confirm his credit card number, as well as his Social Security number.  “Scammers will buy and place fake ads that often elude the filters for the online search engines,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser told AARP Bulletin.  They also tricked him into buying gift cards.  “When people are searching for customer service numbers, they are in a hurry and quickly scan for the first phone number they see,” he said.