Warning about Grandparents and Social Security Scams

New scams pop up every day but some of the older scams never seem to go away.  Scammers prey on emotions and try to get you worried about something in order to steal your money.  Clayton Police Chief Andy Strait warns residents about two popular scams still circulating in the area.  “Well, we’ve had numerous scams lately in Rabun County and several in the City of Clayton.  Some are the typical Grandparents Scam where folks are emailing the grandparents and saying, ‘Hey, this is your grandson, Jeff or whoever, and I’m stuck in New York on an arrest.  Don’t tell mom and dad but I do need $1,500 to get out of jail.’  So, we are getting those kinds of scams and we are getting Social Security scams.  They are calling claiming to be from the Social Security Administration or IRS.”  Scammers always like to ask for payments via gift cards, adds Chief Strait.  “The big thing that I always tell everybody when I’m talking about scams, the big red flag is they ask for gift cards.  They always ask for gift cards as payment.  That is the big sign that this is a scam.  Just hang up on them.  Nine times out of ten, we can’t track where they are coming from because they use these scrambling systems on their phones and computers.”  Another good tip is to screen your calls with caller ID and only answer calls from people you know.