Description

I received a call from "Walmart Fraud Prevention" at 224-544-9673 in Lake Forest, Illinois, this morning. A Middle Eastern-sounding lady gave me her badge number as KS1705, then told me someone from Albany, NY, attempted to buy headphones for $919.45 at Walmart. After I told her it wasn't me, she connected me with my bank, "Wells Fargo," and they discovered another charge of $3,359 from the sports gambling site BetFair. They then connected me with "FTC Officer Jason White, who gave me a badge number of XTC0104. He also spoke with a Middle Eastern accent, assigned an FTC Fraud Reference Number 191595091, and, after checking the FTC records, proceeded to tell me my identity had been used to open many accounts that included high-dollar money laundering operations overseas. He even went so far as to assign a callback number in case we were disconnected: 201-749-5834. I take pride in not being very gullible. Still, they had me hooked until he brought up that his pending FTC investigation should not be mentioned to anyone, including family members. This rang false, so I Googled "Walmart, fraud, FTC, Scam" and his name appeared. I told him I was ending the conversation, but if I were a true international money launderer, I'm actually a Dad with a wife and three teenagers. He should have the North Carolina State or local police come speak to me and hung up. I called the FTC and filed a report on the events. I suspect my tenure as an international criminal lasted about two hours.