The Better Business Bureau in Calgary wants companies throughout southern Alberta to be aware of a new phone scam.
According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB) people are calling southern Alberta businesses pretending to be from the bureau or in some cases a chamber of commerce.
Charlie Whitten president of High Security Lock Company in Calgary received one of the calls which turned out to be a potential scam.
“This woman phoned and said she was from the Better Business Bureau and would like to ask me about where we are moving to,” he explained. “I said, ‘I’m sorry we’re not moving. Where did you get that information from?’ and she hung up.”
Communications and marketing coordinator for the BBB, Kara Hendriksen, said the phone calls going out to local business usually follow this same pattern.
“The callers usually ask if the business is moving,” she said. “If you ask them any questions yourself then they hang up on you. We don’t know 100 percent why they are doing this. At first we theorized they were realtors or movers that were looking for leads locally but because it’s so widespread right now, we have to deduce that’s not the case.”
The BBB has been made aware of 10 phony calls that were made over one two week period and assume more calls were made to businesses but not reported. Previously Hendriksen herself received a call from someone claiming to be from the Calgary Chamber of Commerce asking if the bureau would be moving.
Hendriksen and her associates are concerned these calls may be the precursor to a more elaborate scam.
“One theory we have is that they are actually looking for businesses that are moving or going out of business whose identity they can steal,” she said. “For instance, they could find a car dealership that has moved. Then they post a website on-line saying they are this legitimate business at its old address then they collect payments for cars that aren’t in existence and they scam the consumer.”
The bureau has no evidence yet of this sort of thing happening locally but Hendriksen said this kind of identity theft and scam has been carried out at least a couple of times successfully in the United States.
She said there are ways to determine whether of not it’s the actual BBB calling.
“When the scammers call you it usually comes up as all zeroes on your call display,” Hendriksen explained. “When a call comes from us it comes up as no caller ID or restricted. We’re working to change that because it’s been causing us some issues. But we want businesses and consumers to know that if we call them it’ll be very apparent that it’s the Better Business Bureau and we’ll never hang up on you.”
Anyone questioning whether a call they have received is legitimate or not should call the BBB reports/complaints line at 403-517-4222.
