Letter to the Editor
Saturday, October 9, 2010 6:17 pm

This morning I received a telephone call from someone with a heavy Indian accent asking to speak to Tracy Neal. When I replied "this is she," I was asked if I knew a certain person (this person is a relative of mine, but I didn't offer that information.) I simply replied "yes" and was asked to give the aforementioned person a message. The info i was given stated that the caller was:

Officer Jason Hatch with the "Dept. of Financial Crimes & Investigations" The number to be called back was given to me as 914 205 2436

When I asked what it was in reference to, I was told that the person to whom I needed to relay the message had commited financial fraud & needed to reply asap.

Seeing this as a potential scam, I looked online & found the following link showing several other occasions this has been done:

 http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-813-579-2688

I proceeded to call my relative to ask them to be wary of such calls. His wife had already received a similar call from the same person but different number (011 052 5945) attempting to retrieve private information.

Please warn your readers and/or law enforcement to be aware of these calls. Some people stiill get taken in by these hustlers, especially the elderly.

Thank you,
Tracy Neal