Covid-19 Scams Are On The Rise In Western Mass
Be very careful of phone calls you are answering, my take on answering my phone is if I don't recognize the phone number or name I won't answer it. COVID-19 scams continue to impact western Massachusetts. People with 413 area codes are receiving calls about available vaccine appointments.
Scammers will try anything to get their hands on your confidential data, and the pandemic has created many new opportunities for scams.
WWLP-22News
WWLP reports that the latest source of fraud coming through your phone. Scammers are using a spoofing device that allows them to use numbers associated with actual vaccine clinics, making them easy to fall victim to.
Earlier this week Springfield Consumer Information tweeted out a warning to residents to watch out for the scam.
There are ways to determine if a call is a scam is by the number of times they call; more than twice and chances are, it’s fake. You can also ask the caller what information they have about the appointment, if it’s a scam, it will probably be vague.
Jason Houle from Chicopee said he’s been seeing all sorts of scams having to do with the pandemic.
“It’s the world we live in right now, people would rather work harder to scam something than to go to a job and get a paycheck,”
Legitimate organizations will never ask for your private information over the phone. If you think you’ve been the victim of a scam, you can call the Mayor’s Office of Consumer Information at 413- 787-6437.
LOOK: Answers to 30 common COVID-19 vaccine questions
While much is still unknown about the coronavirus and the future, what is known is that the currently available vaccines have gone through all three trial phases and are safe and effective. It will be necessary for as many Americans as possible to be vaccinated in order to finally return to some level of pre-pandemic normalcy, and hopefully these 30 answers provided here will help readers get vaccinated as soon they are able.
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