Credit Card - Lower Interest Rate Scams
How does the scam work?
How most lower-your-credit-card interest rates scams work is that the caller typically introduces him-or herself by a name and then claims to be with a general company called something like “Card Services” without mentioning the name of the specific credit card. One of the most common is a recorded call that starts with the scammer introducing herself as Rachel (or by some other common name such as Anne) with Card Services. They will then ask if you’re interested in lowering the rates on your credit card or mortgage. Rachel, for example, will claim that you’re eligible for a significant rate decrease on your card’s account. You’re then sent to a live person who will often claim to have special relationships with credit card issuers and try to pressure you into giving your personal information and financial details. They will often claim that they can guarantee that you can lower your interest rates, save thousands of dollars , and have your debt paid off up to five times faster. They’ll also claim things like that they can help lower your interest rates on loans, permanently lower your credit card interest rates to 0 percent, etc. Rachel claims just that but then charges a “fee” of about $5,000. They’ll also often claim that their offer is available for a limited amount of time without specifying a deadline and some even claim money-back guarantees. The difference is that when actual banks or credit card unions do special offers, they have one of their employees call you about it directly without resorting to robo platforms.
What to do when you get a call like that?
When they tell you to press one or two to talk to a “live representative”, don’t do it! Doing so will only result in even more calls from them. Also, when you are connected to the “live representative”, they will start asking for and sometimes even pressure you into giving them your credit card number and other personal information.
Why so many robocalls?
Robocalls have increased over the past year or so. This is mostly due to the cheap internet and autodialing access. This has made it easier than ever for crooks to spoof your number from banks, any other financial institutions that you may use and call center breaches. According to the 2017 Federal Trade Commission Report, the most common complaint was debt reduction claims. However, for every Rachel company that the FTC shuts down, there are always new ones popping up.
How to protect yourself?
There are ways in which you can protect yourself. The first is to never to agree to give out your credit card, bank account numbers or Social Security information. Once these scammers have this information in their hands, they’ll use it to commit identity theft to make their own purchases and/or sell your information to other crooks. The best thing to do is to hang up immediately. Be very careful who you give out your phone number to, particularly if the website in not a job- or a government-related one, and when filling out non-job related forms. You can also use the old common sense trick of sending all strange numbers to your voicemail to see if they leave a message. Chances are, over 95 to 98 percent of the time, they won’t. Or it will be one in which there’s nothing but a brief white noise.