Tyler police warn of phone scam

Published 2:14 pm Monday, October 16, 2017

The City of Tyler is warning residents about a scam circulating on Facebook, falsely claiming dangerous criminals are in the area.

The Tyler Police Department wants the public to be aware of a phone scam. 

The department received several calls from residents regarding a person calling and saying they are with Microsoft Computers. The caller asks the person on the other end of the line for the IP address of their computer to determine if the computer has detected viruses. 



The caller will then act like they are looking into the computer problem and inform the victim that they have numerous computer issues. The caller will ask the victim for a credit card number so they can go in and add virus protection and clean up the viruses that don’t exists.

The suspect will then start charging the victim’s credit card while they keep them on the phone with the phony computer problem.

This scam is primarily targeting elderly people who may not think to question the motive.

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Tips to avoid phone scams include: 

• Do not give your credit card information to an unknown person that has contacted you.

• Do not give anyone access to your computer that would allow them to access private information on it.

• Ask for a call back number to allow you to check into the story that they have given to you.