Monroe Township police are warning residents of a new phone scam affecting the community that seeks to gather credit card information from individuals.
The police department alerted Monroe residents of the new phone scam on Jan. 12 through a Facebook post.
The scam involves individuals who claim they are representatives of Xfinity.
“The scammer then advises our residents that their service price is increasing, and they are running a one-time promotional package,” police said in the post. “They then advise that if they pay today their service will not be interrupted.”
Scammers have also told residents they would “qualify for a $50 discount on their monthly bill, if they made a $150 payment today.”
Monroe police added that in these incidents, the scammers are attempting to get credit card information without allowing people to think.
“The Monroe Township Police Department would like to take this opportunity to remind our residents about scam phone calls and to not give any personal information out over the phone,” they said. “It is unfortunate, but some of our residents did fall victim to these scams.”
Police urged residents to share the scam warning especially with the senior citizen population, which the scammers seem to be heavily targeting.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Data Book for 2022 found that “complaints of imposter” topped the list of robocall complaints.
According to the Data Book, 287,000 complaints were received during the year ending on Sept. 30, 2022.
In a CNBC report, the Truecaller app estimated that nearly 70 million Americans had lost money to phone scams in 2022.
The app estimated that nearly $40 billion had been acquired by scammers during the year.
