The published public phone number of 317-232-8248 for the Indiana State Police General Headquarters in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana is reported to have been spoofed over the last 24 hours.
As defined by TechTarget, caller ID spoofing is a service that allows a caller to masquerade as someone else by falsifying the number that appears on the recipient’s caller ID display. Just as e-mail spoofing can make it appear that a message came from any e-mail address the sender chooses, caller ID spoofing can make a call appear to come from any phone number the caller wishes.
People reporting the spoof calls have stated their caller ID displayed the phone number of 317-232-8248 and the person calling identified themselves as being with the Indiana State Police. From the complaints thus far received, which have been from across the country, it has been reported the caller usually has what is described as “a thick Indian accent†but not necessarily all the time. The imposter then begins asking for personal identification information or makes threats alleging the person being called will be arrested if they fail to comply with requests made during the phone call.
Fortunately a number of potential victims became suspicious of the call, hung up the phone, and then dialed the number displayed on their caller ID. This put them in touch with the true Indiana State Police and allowed them to report the criminal action of impersonating a police officer.
Anyone receiving an unsolicited phone call from a person alleging to be a law enforcement officer, or other form of government official should be suspicious of the call if threats of arrest are made or personal information one would not normally provide to a stranger is asked for. If you are suspicious of a call, and a caller ID number is displayed, you can immediately do one of two things, AFTER YOU HANG UP:
- Type the phone number into your favorite search engine and you may see the number has been reported as being associated to scam activity.
- Call back the number displayed to see if it was spoofed and the call will either ring without ever being answered or the true holder of the phone number will answer and you can report the number has been spoofed to the legitimate holder of the phone number
As with past warnings on alleged government representatives calling to threaten immediate jailing for not cooperating with the person calling, please remember to NEVER give personal information to the caller. Such personal information to never give over the phone to an unverified caller would include:
- Bank Account Numbers
- Social Security Number
- Birth Date
- Credit Card Numbers
- Any other close personal information on yourself or other family members
Regrettably, these scams nearly always trace back to a foreign country and it is virtually impossible to successfully prosecute the persons responsible for these criminal acts.Unfortunately these scams will continue as long as a percentage of the population responds by giving their personal information or sends money to the scammers.
When an unsolicited call comes to your home, business or cell phone and has the common factors of being threatening and demanding money, be assured that 99.9% of the time it is a scam. Just hang-up. They won’t call back. They will just move on to the next call looking for someone to victimize.
