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Self-Help Builder News October 2012 Volume 5, Issue #3 >
Scam alert from USDA
We have recently learned of several attempted scams involving borrowers of Direct Rural Development home loans or applicants for federal assistance. Most involve requests for Social Security numbers, bank account information or other Personally Identifiable Information (PII). These scams have been reported to the Agriculture Security Operations Center and to the Office of the Inspector General.
In one scam, a caller identified herself as an agent with the Government Grant Agency (a non-existent agency) and relayed to the recipient that she had been awarded an additional $10,000-$50,000 in grant money. The caller asked for the recipient’s bank account information to deposit the money. The caller instructed the recipient to call “Bank of America at 1-407-401-7690.” The recipient became suspicious when the caller requested a $300 up-front payment be made before she would deposit the grant money.
In another scam, Rural Development home loan borrowers received calls from an individual stating that the government was going to make their payments for them. The individual then asked for financial information and the borrowers’ Social Security numbers. In return, the caller gave them the routing number of the Federal Bank of Atlanta to use to make their payments. The premise of this fraud was to solicit the borrowers’ PII.
One company defrauded an applicant out of $2,500. The company charged the applicant this money as a “fee” to process his USDA grant application. The company offered no assistance to the applicant and did not work with the field office on behalf of the applicant. The applicant eventually contacted Rural Development and was informed that there is no charge for submitting a grant application and that he lived in an ineligible area to receive the grant.
Please be advised that borrowers and applicants for Rural Development assistance should never respond to unsolicited calls or e-mails regarding their existing loans, and that they should not provide PII information when inquiring about federal assistance.
If someone has received a suspicious inquiry, or has reason to believe a solicitation is a scam, please ask them to immediately contact the Rural Development Incident Response Team at security.irt@stl.usda.gov.