Local residents and senior citizens in particular, were put on notice again by the Bermuda Police Service (BPS) tonight, with another reminder for members of the public “to remain vigilant regarding phone calls, emails and other correspondence from unknown persons” trying fraudulently “obtain personal information or other sensitive data”.
A police spokesman confirmed that the BPS Organised and Economic Crime Department (OECD) “has yet again received reports from local residents of telephone calls from unknown persons claiming to represent global technology companies” like Microsoft and Apple and local communications companies Logic and North Rock.
But he said: “These deceptive calls are not genuine and are believed to come from overseas.
“The intent of the unknown callers is to convince contacted persons to provide remote access to their computer – using the excuse that the computer has some type of problem which the caller states they will fix – in order to log in to the unsuspecting resident’s electronic banking, where funds are eventually stolen.
“In the event an unknown caller’s computer access request is challenged or refused, the fraudster is known to make threats – including suggesting that the contacted person could be sent to jail for not cooperating.
“If you are unsure whether or not a local business is contacting you for legitimate reasons, hang up on the unkonwn caller and then call the business in question to verify.
“But in general, it is strongly recommended that such unsolicited phone calls, emails, etc be ignored,” he added.
“Residents are further reminded that personal information, including access details of their home computer(s), is valuable and that this information should never be relayed over the internet or phone to unknown persons.”
Residents are urged to report any suspected incidents of internet fraud to the Financial Crime Unit on telephone number 247-1757 or via email on fraud2@bps.bm.
