Watch Out For Phone Scams!

It’s amazing what some scam artists think their targets will fall for.

Two suspicious phone calls were reported to the Melrose Police Department (MPD) within the last few days. Notices from the MPD state that on Thursday, a possible ne’er-do-well phoned a citizen on the pretext of representing Bank of America. The caller requested the citizen’s social security number, supposedly needed to “verify” an account. Because giving out a social security number to a questionable stranger is a profoundly bad idea, the citizen wisely hung up and alerted the authorities.

A more creative suspected phone scam was attempted Friday. Someone called a different Melrose resident insisting that, at the behest of the government, they needed to clean the air ducts of the resident’s home.

“Air ducts?” Do crooks think the people of Melrose live in space stations?

Police encourage vigilance when it comes to suspicious phone calls, particularly any that request social security numbers or mention “air duct cleaning,” whatever the heck that’s supposed to mean.