Obama bill-paying hoax sweeps up victims nationwide

Are people really this stupid?

A myth that President Obama is giving people money to pay their bills has prompted thousands of people across the country to try to pay for utilities, phone service and loans using bogus bank routing numbers.

One version of the hoax involves using the series of red numbers on the back of a Social Security cards as a bank routing number.

The red numbers actually are a security feature added to cards in 1996 to prevent counterfeiting, a Social Security spokesman said.

FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Meyers said the utility, which operates across 12 states, spotted the trend in May when its payment systems began jettisoning large numbers of phony routing numbers. The company issued a warning that the government program wasn't real, and the Better Business Bureau followed suit.


[link to www.cleveland.com]

Last Edited by mathetes on 07/11/2012 01:00 PM