Designated Secretary of the Department of Consumer Affairs (DACO), Edan Rivera Rodríguez, warned citizens on Monday to be aware of phone scams by unscrupulous people posing as employees of banking institutions, government employees or an excuse to fulfill his mission. to achieve.
“We heard from a person who was scammed over the phone. Via a phone call, a man pretended to be an employee of the Electric Power Authority and threatened to shut down the electricity service for non-payment. The consumer gave him the credit card and was scammed for nearly $ 20,000. Faced with such a scenario, people get confused and fall into the trap of scammers, ”Rivera Rodríguez said in written statements.
The official advised consumers in a similar situation to request personal information by telephone to hang up and that it is the consumer himself who generates the telephone call to the official number of the agency or company. Likewise, it recommends not responding to or sharing personal information via email to avoid fraud or identity theft.
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He cited another publicly reported case of a woman who was defrauded via ath’s mobile application. The scammer asked him over the phone to validate the code to recover the account, which allowed him to access it and withdraw over $ 2,000.
For more information on how to avoid scams, visit the pages of the Federal Trade Commission (ftc.gov) and the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (consumerfinance.gov).