Just wanted to give you guys a heads up: About an hour ago I received a call to my personal cell phone from a number that my nexus 5 recognized as being from the Austin PD. The man on the other end spoke with a strong scandanavian(?) accent and asked to speak to my mother (by name). I asked what this was regarding and he said there was a "federal complaint" filed against her. City police? Federal complaint? My mother has never been to Austin...Obviously I immediately became suspicious as it didn't add up. I told him he'd have to call back tomorrow as my mom was at work. We hung up. About an hour later I get two more calls from an unknown number and another call from the same number as before. I don't attend any of them and I call my brother in the Houston PD. I explain what happened and he tells me it sounds fishy, but he'll look into it. My brother calls the Austin PD directly and finds out that their system has been compromised and they have been receiving complaints regarding such fictitious calls all day! TL;DR: If you receive a suspicious call from the Austin PD and the guy speaks weird English, disregard it. They got hacked! Stay safe, folks
These been a Green Dot money card scam going on for years that involves people pretending to be police and extorting fines with threat of jail.
i have no idea if in any way this is connected to what the opening post is about. but i live in austin and for the first time that i can remember i got a text for the first time (same place i get texts about date/minute usage) from my cell provider this morning saying beware of any phone calls asking for credit card or other personal info, fraud alert! etc.
