NORFOLK, Va. — Recently, a phone call came into the News 3 newsroom that stopped me right in my tracks.
The caller said I was being sued and was planning to have me served with court papers at work. After the initial panic wore off, I did some digging and found out that call was part of a growing trend in the world of phone scams. And I wasn't the only one being targeted on the job.
"It sounded legit."
Sammi Bilitz, part of our team of digital producers at News 3, answered the phone call. It came in around 8:30 p.m. one evening in December. The woman who called was looking for me, saying I was in legal trouble and needed to coordinate with me to serve legal papers.
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"I took down the number of your court case, I took down their phone number, that woman's name, and I asked if I could call her back later that night," Bilitz recalls. "And she told me she was busy."
In hindsight, Bilitz admits that should have been a red flag that the call wasn't legitimate. But that wouldn't be the only call we'd get. Two other people connected to our newsroom also got similar calls, threatening lawsuits against them. Including the wife of our Director of Digital Media, Jon Sham.
"She was really freaked out," Sham told me. "She's like, hey, they have all my information. They, you know, they have my address and they're saying that I need to be in court."
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I called the number back and quickly realized what was really happening here. The woman who answered immediately asked for personal information, like my social security number.
She got angry when I refused.
I became more suspicious when she couldn't give me specifics about what I was supposedly being sued for. Then, when mentioned I was a news reporter and started asking more questions, she hung up.
"Don't pick up the phone."
Through its Scam Tracker, the Better Business Bureau warns this is something called a process server scam and calls like these are on the rise.
Cameron Huddleston with Carefull tells me the best way to avoid being a victim is to simply not answer your phone if you don't know who's calling.
"I know that sounds extreme, but let calls go to voicemail," Huddleston suggests.
If you do answer, don't be fooled if the caller already knows a lot about you, like part of your Social Security number, your address or even where you work. Hackers, Huddleston says, get that information through data breaches and sell that it on the dark web. They then use that information so their call seems more legitimate.
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Another red flag is if the caller wants you to pay.
"If you're being asked to pay with a gift card, a prepaid card, if you're being asked to wire money, or make a payment through a peer to peer payment app, such as Zelle, that's a big red flag," Huddleston warns.
Finally, be aware of scare tactics. Legitimate calls would never include threats or intimidation.
"Whatever it is, they want to scare you so that you are thinking emotionally, not rationally," she adds.
In my case, like the others, there were no lawsuits. The scammers were simply trying to scare us into sharing our precious personal information.
If you believe you've received a call like this, report it to the BBB.
