The Chinese community in San Francisco is being warned against identity theft scams in the wake of multiple reports received by police this month regarding scammers posing as health care providers, federal employees and police officers claiming to be from China.
According to police, victims generally reported receiving a phone call from a number, which appeared to be from a health care provider. The callers claimed to be from the provider’s insurance claim department, asking the victims if they had undergone a surgical procedure in China recently, the San Francisco Police Department said in an advisory Thursday.
“When the victims replied that they did not receive any surgical treatment in China, the scammers then told the victims that someone had submitted their personal information like birth date, ID number, address and more, to submit a fraudulent claim. The suspects then transferred the calls to other suspects, who claimed to be police officers from a city in China. The suspects claimed they wanted to file police reports for the victims’ compromised personal information,” the San Francisco Police Department said.
Other victims said that they talked with the scammers on video. The callers were reportedly dressed in Chinese police officers’ uniforms with a background resembling a police station in China. The victims were then told to download communications applications like Signal or Skype for texts, voice calls and video calls.
Police said that on one occasion, a scammer posed as a police officer from a Chinese city and sent victims a photo of a Chinese police identification card purporting to be from the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department and spoke Mandarin with the victims during a video call.
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Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.