Georgia’s insurance commissioner has issued a warning urging residents to be alert for phone calls from people claiming to have life insurance proceeds available to them for a fee.
Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens said Tuesday his agency’s fraud unit has determined that the calls are fraudulent and part of a scam to separate you from your hard earned money.
“My office has received complaints from consumers who were scammed out of thousands of dollars by individuals claiming to be insurance company representatives,” Hudgens said. “These low-life scammers are telling consumers that their deceased relative had life insurance that lapsed, but if an immediate payment is made to reinstate the policy, they will become the beneficiary.”
Here is how it works, according to Hudgens’ office:
• The scammer instructs you to submit a payment in the form of pre-paid money cards to immediately reinstate the policy.
• The scammer explains that the transaction will need to be completed within a few hours and that they will call you back at a specific time. You are then told to go to a CVS or Rite Aid pharmacy and pick up various numbers of Green Dot’s MoneyPak cards and upload different amounts of money onto each card.
• The scammer then call you back at the designated time and instruct you to scratch the back of the MoneyPak cards and read to them the concealed 14-digit serial numbers.
• By reading the concealed number to the scammer, it allows them to transfer the money immediately to their account without having the actual cards.
Hudgens recommends that anyone who receives a call of this nature hang up immediately and contact his Consumer Services Division at 800-656-2298.