From the Cumberland County Offices of
Consumer Protection & Information Technology
During the overnight hours of Tuesday May 7th, Cumberland County became a victim of “Caller ID Spoofing”.
Caller ID spoofing defined:
- “When a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display … to disguise their identity.
- Spoofing is often used as part of an attempt to trick someone into giving away valuable personal information so it can be used in fraudulent activity or sold illegally.
Phone numbers assigned to a county office were used to mask the identity of these presumed robocalls, to a number of citizens within Cumberland County. These calls were made during early (inconvenient) morning hours.
Either the call went unanswered, or was disconnected. The citizen receiving the call then returned the call listed on the caller ID … which was a County Office.
Our county has reported this activity to the State of NJ.
There are steps that our citizens can take to educate and protect themselves from RoboCalls / Caller ID Spoofing.
You can learn more about the two most common robocall scams at
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/one-ring-phone-scam and
https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2019/medicare-scam-psa.html
If you receive one if these robocalls, you can report it to the FTC at https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov
or to the FCC at https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=39744
Cumberland County
Division of Consumer Affairs
220 N. Laurel St.
Bridgeton, NJ 08302
856-451-0925