LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- Phone scams are nothing new, but a scam using the name of a local company is a little different.
"I've gotten plenty of scam calls from the IRS or some fictitious company filing a lawsuit against me," George Hord, a Mt. Washington man, said. "But this was the first time I had one pretend to be a company I knew to be respected in the community."
"I know that these kinds of scams exist," Kevin Renfro, the owner and managing partner of the Becker Law Office, said. "I had no idea that the Becker Law Office would ever be involved in one."
Renfro said his office received several calls Friday from people who reported getting a call from someone pretending to work for Becker Law Office, telling them the law firm would be suing them unless they paid them a certain amount of money. Renfro said his IT department found the scammers were using the Becker Law Office's fax number to call the people and that it had been used around 80 times.
"We've gotten a call from someone in Lexington, somebody in Eastern Kentucky, somebody in Flatwoods," he said. "One lady called my Lexington office while the person, the scammer, was on the phone and said, 'Do you have an employee named Johnny?' And we said, 'Well no we don't. Why?' And she told us what happened and we said, 'Oh my goodness, that's a scam.'"
Hord was among the people receiving the phony calls. Hord said his called spoke in very broken English and claimed to be a paralegal named "Steve Brown," who asked him to recite back a fake case number, which included his initials and part of Hord's social security.
"He asked me several times to repeat the number back to him. I refused to do it and we bantered back and forth for about 10 to 15 minutes, more of me messing with him than anything else because I kind of figured it was a scam," he said. "I guess people think we're more gullible than younger people."
Renfro said the Becker Law Office will never ask for credit card information over the phone and that it will notify someone of a lawsuit with more than a day's notice. According to Renfro, the code of ethics also bars attorneys and law firms from accepting payment to drop a suit. However, he does worry that scammers may reach people who are not as familiar with the legal system who may fall prey to the scheme.
"If I'm one of the vulnerable people getting the call, my first fear would be I can't defend myself in a lawsuit because I would have to hire a lawyer," he said. "I don't have the money to hire a lawyer. Gee, this might be cheaper for me to just pay it off and be done with it."
"When somebody comes along and takes a large chunk of that [your fixed income] away from you, it really hurts," Hord said. "And these people don't care what they're doing, who they hurt or how they hurt them."
Renfro said he has reported the scam to the Kentucky Attorney General's Office's Consumer Protection Division.
Anyone who receives a phone call believed to be a scam should contact the Attorney General's Office, the Better Business Bureau or local law enforcement. People should also check back with the company to see if the phone call is legitimate or a scam.
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