This is really cruel:
The American Red Cross has learned about a new scam targeting military families. This scam takes the form of false information to military families....
Just when I thought my outrage meter was broken....
I found out about this one today while checking the jobs listings on Craigslist. I came across a nonprofit site advertising for office help and research assistants. When I checked out their home page, I found a quick blurb and link (see below) to the Red Cross press release, posted on May 29, 2007. (Yes, I ran a search for any similar warnings here, and found nothing.)
The notice goes on:
The caller (young-sounding, American accent) calls a military spouse and identifies herself as a representative from the Red Cross. The caller states that the spouse's husband (not identified by name) was hurt while on duty in Iraq and was med-evacuated to a hospital in Germany. The caller stated they couldn't start treatment until paperwork was accomplished, and that in order to start the paperwork they needed the spouse to verify her husband's social security number and date of birth. In this case, the spouse was quick to catch on and she did not provide any information to the caller.
Now this takes gall, people. It is bad enough that military families are stressed to the gills thanks to the multiple deployments, often suffer financial distress, don't sleep well, and dread the knock at the door. Then some waste of a human being has to prey upon their vulnerabilities over the damn phone.
A reminder about how the Red Cross operates in the case of a incident involving a military family member is timely:
The American Red Cross representatives typically do not contact military members/dependents directly and almost always go through a commander or first sergeant channels. Military family members are urged not to give out any personal information over the phone if contacted by unknown/unverified individuals, to include confirmation that your spouse is deployed.
And, oh, by the way, it is a federal offense to impersonate Red Cross personnel in the commission of a crime, such as telephone fraud. If convicted, the offender can do as much as five years in the slammer. My bet is that in such a case as this, the judge will insist upon the maximum sentence.
The entire press release is here, if you don't believe me. Please, if you have extended family and/or friends with loved ones in the military, send them the link to the press release. It could save them a major financial headache or even identity theft. The last thing some Iraq or Afghanistan combat vet needs to deal with on coming home is to find out his or her credit rating has been shot to hell in a scam. And military spouses have enough on their plates, as we've seen in some recent diaries posted here, and don't need to be terrified by some con-man.