A White Hall resident received a call on their cell phone from one of their contacts, a family member.
The caller said that the family member had been kidnapped and the caller was going to kill the family
member if a ransom was not paid via a cash transfer app. Fortunately, there was no kidnapping, the
family member was safe and no money was ever exchanged.

What Is Spoofing?

According to the FCC Federal Communications Commission | The United States of America (fcc.gov)
Spoofing is when a caller deliberately falsifies the information transmitted to your caller ID display to
disguise their identity. Scammers often use “neighbor spoofing” so it appears that an incoming call is
coming from a local number, or spoof a number from a company or a government agency that you may
already know and trust.

Do not save contacts as “Dad”, “Mom”, “Son”, “Daughter”.

Only install apps from trusted sources. Before downloading an app, conduct research to ensure the app
is legitimate. Checking the legitimacy of an app may include such thing as: checking reviews, confirming
the legitimacy of the app store, and comparing the app sponsor’s official website with the app store link
to confirm consistency. Many apps from untrusted sources contain malware that once installed can steal
information, install viruses, and cause harm to your phone’s contents.

Understand app permissions before accepting them. You should be cautious about granting applications
access to personal information on your phone or otherwise letting the application have access to
perform functions on your phone. Make sure to also check the privacy settings for each app before
installing.

Wipe data on your old phone before you donate, resell or recycle it. Your smartphone contains personal
data you want to keep private when you dispose your old phone. To protect your privacy, completely
erase data off of your phone and reset the phone to its initial factory settings.