12 Days of Scams Day 5:. Credit Card Interest Rate Reduction scam

Earlier this year, the Federal Trade Commission filed a case in Florida federal court against three individuals who had set up a maze of interrelated operations that used illegal robocalls to contact financially distressed consumers, many of whom were seniors, across the nation with offers of bogus credit card interest rate reduction services.

They were told that, for a fee, they could lower their credit card interest rates to zero for the life of the debt to save them thousands of dollars on their credit card debt. Too good to be true? Definitely!

Using the ploy of confirming consumers’ identities, many were tricked into providing their personal financial information, including their Social Security and credit card numbers.

If consumers did not buy the services, some later found out that fraudulent credit cards had been applied for without their knowledge or consent. Those consumers were able to do that through checking their free annual credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com/index.action

When it’s too good to be true, hang up fast!