I, unlike many of you who have reported on here who were more keen than I, was scammed by the "Grant Government Processing Center" out of Las Vegas, NV (supposedly.) Normally, I do not answer "unknown caller" on my caller i.D., but sometimes people I know come up as unknown, so I answered. When I answered the phone, as many others have described, I was greeted by a woman with an Indian accent who spoke about a million miles a minute. I guess I was kind of in a whirlwind of information at first and tried to get her to slow down and explain what was going on. Needless to say, I for some reason bought into it and finally (after much resistance) stupidly gave up my account information. I am a college student who already has financial troubles and thought at first it was a scholarship grant I had applied for.
Call me naive, but I did not realize that these people can say anything to you over the phone to get your information (anything!).in fact, I was unaware of scams like these. I immediately went online to check this out, although I should have done it while I was still on the phone. (Trust me, i'm still kicking myself.)
Then I called the number to cancel, and was greeted with a message that says "the number you are calling does not exist." I called my bank as soon as Monday rolled around, and they said that I needed to put a stop payment on the check. I did so for the check number that I supposedly "set aside" for this payment (which cost me $20). But since they used another "fake" check number to withdraw the money from my account, the stop payment did not work. Better yet, I was not able to get my paycheck in on time so my account was overdrafted.
If you have bought into this like it did, I do not know what to say to prevent the check from going through. But it can be reversed... Unfortunately, it takes up to 10 business days! I am hoping that all my fees will be reversed. I'm just not sure what to do at this point.
I learned my lesson the hard way. I hope that these people will be stopped, and I hope this report helps someone else.
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