Recent rise in phone call scams have been targeting immigrants, LPD says

Lincoln police is alerting people to beware of scam calls involving your social security number.

There was a notable increase in the month of June.

LPD says the scammers are targeting immigrants and new Nebraska residents, leveraging the victims with their freedom.

Veronica Yunge is a health coordinator for El Centro De Las Americas in Lincoln.

She says that over the past month there’s been a noticeable number of people coming to her for help with phone call scams involving social security numbers.

“It was happening a lot, I would say last month especially,” said Yunge.

El Centro is a non–profit that aims to help Hispanic immigrants get on their feet in a new city, helping to connect people with jobs and holding classes to gain citizenship.

The scammers have targeted this demographic, using fear tactics to try and coerce them into paying off a made up warrant.

“Some of these calls they’re saying that the social security number was used to rent a car in Texas or in another state and then that car was used in a crime,” said LPD Officer Angela Sands.

LPD says the scammers call their victims claiming to be from the social security administration, demanding payment in gift cards to clear their name.

“When this was happening at the beginning, they became very scared, they wanted to be sure that their name was not in trouble,” said Yunge.

Immigrating to a new country is difficult, and the language barrier makes it even more burdensome.

Yunge does her best to help them when they come to her with questions.

“They say, I don’t understand, they have been calling me from this number. They ask me if I can call those numbers back, and I do that, and right away I can tell that’s a scam, so I tell them please, delete the number of don’t answer the number,” said Yunge.

It has happened so much recently, that the non–profit has gotten more proactive to try to get the word out about the rise in scam calls.

“Anything like that, we tell them not to give information and actually hang up,” said Yunge.

A reminder from Lincoln police:

No legitimate law enforcement officer would demand a payment over the phone.

If you receive one of these calls, you are advised to hang up and contact the police.