New Scam Targets Military Spouses

[TexKan]

Now this just sucks!!!

Red Cross, Military Warn Military Families

POSTED: 10:23 am CDT May 31, 2007


There's a new warning for spouses of people in the U.S. military.

The American Red Cross said a new identity-theft scam targets family members of deployed troops. They learned of the scam earlier this month, said Devorah Goldburg of the Red Cross.

Goldburg said the scam involves a person with an American accent calling a military spouse, identifying herself as a representative of the Red Cross, and telling the spouse that her husband was hurt in Iraq and was medically evacuated to Germany. The caller then said that doctors can't start treatment until paperwork is completed, and that to start the paperwork they need the spouse to verify her husband's Social Security number and date of birth, according to a press release.

It is hard to determine how many spouses have been targeted by this scam, Goldburg said, as there are many ways for spouses to report problems like this.

"We know that it happened to one person; it was probably going to happen to others, and we wanted to be prudent and alert people," she said.

American Red Cross representatives typically do not contact military members or dependents directly and almost always go through a commander or first sergeant, according to a Red Cross news release. The military is urging family members not to give out any personal information over the phone if contacted by unknown individuals, including confirmation that their spouse is deployed.

Red Cross representatives contact military members or dependents directly only in response to an emergency message initiated by a family member, the news release said. The Red Cross does not report any type of casualty information to family members; the Defense Department will contact families directly about family members' injuries.

The military said it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, for a person to fraudulently pretend to be a member of, or an agent for, the American Red Cross for the purpose of soliciting, collecting, or receiving money or material. Any military family member that receives such a call is urged to report it to their local family readiness group or military personnel flight.

New Scam Targets Military Spouses - Money News Story - KPRC Houston

[tat2me82]

I didn't think that that red cross would be the one calling families for that, but again I'm not in the military so I have no idea
That's terrible that some people can be heartless enough to feed off others. I suppose most people just like to try and get through things the easy way.

[Outofdodge]

Originally Posted by tat2me82

I didn't think that that red cross would be the one calling families for that, but again I'm not in the military so I have no idea .

In a perfect world the con artists would be dumb enough to make that phone call from a payphone outside a troop staging area and be discovered, but since the world is not perfect I hope there is a special place in hell for pricks like that

I'm sure most military spouses in a thinking moment would know that a military hospital in Germany is already going to have the soldier's information already but telling someone who's not seen their loved one and does not know what's happening he/she has been hurt could put them in a state where they would not be thinking clearly and be vulnerable to giving it out.

Originally Posted by tat2me82

That's terrible that some people can be heartless enough to feed off others. I suppose most people just like to try and get through things the easy way.

Some people wait year's to have a line like this thrown up and it's tailor made for the RIGHT dig at certain beliefs, but for this thread I'll call a cease fire.

[SGT T.]

They need to find this SOB. HE's gonna need to be evac'd if the military ever finds him. That is just about as cold hearted as you can get.

Muther*$&%in people... GRRRRRRR!

[jeezeweeze]

Originally Posted by tat2me82

That's terrible that some people can be heartless enough to feed off others. I suppose most people just like to try and get through things the easy way.

Yeah....they are called Maggots...and I hope they punish him severely...

[K C Muffin]

I hope I'm right when I suspect the military brass is going to leave no stone unturned till they find this guy. It's bad enough we're sending our military away from home into a war zone, but to have snakes like this preying on their family is absolutely the lowest. May God have mercy on his soul, because no one else is going to.