Ephrata woman avoids phone scam

Police advise keeping info secure

EPHRATA — Shirley Johnson awoke at roughly 6:45 a.m. Monday morning to a ringing telephone.

The elderly Ephrata woman answered after the third ring, worried it might be bad news from relatives because of the earliness of the call.

Instead, the person on the other end was a man claiming to be from the "International Medical Registry." He asked for her personal information, including her Social Security number. When Johnson refused, the man threatened to take away her Medicare payments and Social Security benefits unless she supplied the requested details.

"Even a sailor would have blushed if they could have read my thoughts," said Johnson, who is in her early 60s.

Johnson knew not to provide her personal information to the man and called the police after hanging up on him. She also alerted her phone company to the scam. She is worried others on medication or in worse medical condition might not do the same.

"If they called, excuse the expression, poor little old me, you know they called someone else," she said.

If the person calls again, the phone company will conduct a trace on the phone number.

Johnson said the threatening tone of the person might trigger a heart attack in someone in poor condition, and others might give their personal information to the caller.

"People like myself and worse conditions, that's all we have to live on," she said.

Ephrata Police Sergeant Dan Bohnet said calls to the police department about scams are common. Most of the time, the con artist is attempting to get someone's bank account information.

"A lot of these people are getting letters stating they have come into some money," Bohnet said.

A woman who recently called the Ephrata Police Department gave out her bank account information to someone and had second thoughts about the decision. Staff from her bank called the number provided by the suspected criminal. They found the phone number was not connected with the organization claimed.

The person involved with the scam might ask for money, such as a processing fee, to send the victim a large sum of money they supposedly won.

One man lost $10,000 because he kept sending money and never received anything back, according to Ephrata police.

Bohnet advised people to follow the traditional rule: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Calling the Better Business Bureau is the easiest way to check on whether something is a scam, Bohnet said. Asking for a phone number and calling it back is another way to check on the validity of the organization. Bohnet knows of several instances where someone called a number back, only to find the number to be non-existent.

He said people should never give their personal information out over the phone.

"I would never give out my Social Security number over the phone," he said.

He advised others to do the same.