The Illinois State Police (ISP) is warning the public of a phone scam. Over the past two days, ISP has received several phone calls from individuals reporting a person claiming to be an ISP investigator telling them their identity has been stolen. This is a scam. ISP special agents will not make cold calls requesting personal or financial information, or ask you to confirm personal or financial information.
If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be an ISP investigator, ask for the caller’s name, badge number, and phone number, and then hang up. Never provide or confirm personal or financial information over the phone to an unknown caller. You can verify if a caller is an ISP special agent by contacting one of the seven investigative regions throughout the state, which can be found on the ISP website.
If you have provided personal or financial information to a caller, or think someone may have stolen your identifying information, ISP recommends contacting each of the three credit bureaus to put a free security freeze on your credit. This will prevent someone from opening credit in your name.
- https://www.equifax.com/
personal/credit-report- services/credit-freeze/ - https://www.experian.com/
freeze/center.html - https://www.transunion.com/
credit-freeze
You can also call the Illinois Attorney General’s Identity Theft Hotline at 1-866-999-5630 (7-1-1 relay service). You will be assigned a Consumer Advocate to guide you through the recovery process.