While I was at work on December 28th, roughly around closing time; I was contacted by this agency that said I was eligible to recieve up to $50,000 for grants or Scholarships of my choosing.
The gentleman on the phone pretty much told me that the government was giving money back to people who paid their taxes on time and that I didn't have to worry about a credit check even if I had bad or no credit. Being a college student, what this guy was saying sounded almost too good to be true, he told me about the scholarship money, plus a $500 cash voucher and a new computer. And it pretty much is too good to be true because he told me I would have to pay a 239.00 processing fee for all the paperwork. Which normally I can understand cause college funding paperwork takes ages; so I asked him if I would have to pay for it right now over the phone and he said no.
He then told me that I would be directed to a message machine that would be asking me standard information but he would recite them to me before hand so that I knew what was comming up and wouldn't miss any... I was like ok, sounds about right. Right before he started saying what was on the message machine he asked me if I had any questions. I said just one... How did you get my cell phone number. The number which he had called me from came up as restricted and he had called me the night before at about 9 pm. I missed the call at the time. He proceeded to tell me that the information was probably posted by me or a member of my family while I was applying online for a grant. I told him that I pay for my own education so I havent applied for any kind of financial assistance in about 3 years... He moved on to the questions.
So he went through the standard stuff first... Name... Home phone... Address... Stuff like that and repeated my information back to me, I had never given it to him in the first place. Then he asked me what the name of my bank was. At this point, I realize that this guy is trying to scam me so I start messing with him so I asked him why he needed to know, he told me that I didn't have to tell him if I didn't want to because I would get this question on the machine... Alright. He then askes me if I have a checking or savings account... And I said checking. He then asked me for my routing number and I said I didn't have it on me currently so he told me to give him the name of my bank and he could give me the routing number. I told him I didn't feel comfortable just giving out my info to someone over the phone that I'd never met. He said that he completely understood and proceeded to go through this sob story about how he was just like me going through college and then this company had called him and completely changed life for him... All the while I am getting online and looking up information on this company as well as noticing that he sounds like he's reading off of a cue card. This guy had a disgustingly horrid foreign accent so everything he said was choppy. So we argued back and forth about the routing number till I finally got fed up and told him that I would have to talk to my father about it and I would get back to him. He asked me why I would have to go through my dad and I told him that my dad maintains my finances so I asked for the number and I would get back to him.
Then he askes me again for my bank infor and I got tired of it and hung up. He then calls me back about 2 minutes later from a different number, not restricted this time but unavailable but before he could say anything I hung up on him.
If someone of this company calls you tell them you are not interested an hang up. It's a scam!
0 comments