Beware Of Scams

Hello everybody,
I have been a member of indus ladies for a long time and am more of a silent observer rather than posting actively. But today I had a harrowing experience which I feel needs to be shared and others will not fall into the trap like me.
Firstly I relocated to US around 3 months ago and stay here with my husband. We obviously have all the necessary visa and documentation in place which I am very much aware of. But still I was taken for a ride.
Today morning I received a call from a lady telling that there some missing information/forms which were supposed to filled by me but I have not done so. An officer will be calling me to discuss further and I at no time should be calling anybody including my husband as my phone is under constant surveilance.
He called and spoke very authoritatively introduced himself as some officer and asked me to google forms ar-11 which supposedly needs to be filled by me. It should have been filled within 10 days which i have failed to do. He told me not to call my husband, as immigration issues might cause him to lose his job.Please cooperate with us so that we help you reduce the sentence. He mentioned he has an arrest warrant under my name I need to arrange for the bail amount. Since I mentioned I donot have a debit / credit card with me, he asked me to go to Walmart and buy gift cards with 200 dollar cash I had with me. He asked me to share the card numbers along with the activation number(big red flag i know but the educated me did not even realize that in the panic mode) Some of the further things I did during the course of this horrid day were
. Going to my bank and with drawing 4000 dollars amount
. Apart from Walmart going to other supermarkets like Walgreens, Albertsons etc and buying more gift cards and sharing the details like an idiot
. Not even receiving my husband's call and believing whatever they say.
Almost from morning 10-00am to around evening 6 I roamed around the place.
Their charade ended when my husband messaged me (since I was declining his calls) telling that he was with the police and all the calls were fraud.
Around 3pm my husband received a call from these scamsters supposedly from my phone number telling that his wife was with them and if he did not pay the amount(again via some gift cards) they would kill me.
He hung up and called the cops who then took his statements and came to me near albertsons super market. By this time the fraudsters stopped calling me.

Some reasons I believed them:
Showing authentic immigration forms like AR-11 and giving authentic phone numbers. The mailbox also mentioned i had reached the US immigration.
Authoritative tone and giving my details like my home address perfectly
Making me delete whassup as a security precaution
Telling that gift cards are also used for raising bail.

Major red flags which i only focused on after everything:
. Asking for gift cards with their activation numbers
. Having extreme patience even when my phone got switched off multiple times due low battery. They waited patiently every time.
Changing the bail amount from 1999USD to 4000 USD since they knew I had that much amount with me. They threatened me that my accounts will be freezed.

Some Actions we have taken:
Locked our credit reports and will be visiting the bank tommorrow(Though I withdrew the amount from my account on my own)
Lodged a police complaint .
Spoke to my husband's company and immigration attorney.

Lessons Learnt
. Keep the head clear and understand that something is fishy when they accuse you of weird things. Failure to submit certain information will not be leading 250,000 USD fine.
. Contact the authorities if it is not normal. Like the fraudsters told me cops will come to arrest me. I should have told him I will wait for the cops instead of panicking .

Some Thoughts
I am trying not to beat myself too much about it as analyzing always does not happen when we are in a high pressure situation but yes I am feeling extremely foolish in this whole fiasco and will take some time for me to recover completely.

Please do let me know if anybody had similar experiences and have some inputs for me. People staying in the US for long time can also guide me.

PS: Moderators I am not sure if this is right forum please help to direct me to the right forum

 

Thanks for your kind words. We are in fact extremely careful and do shred our personal info. Thankfully I did not share my ssn or any bank pin. I am in the midst of the job search in this new country and uploaded my resumes in different jobsites. My DH feels this where they would have gathered my address and phone numbers.
Anyways I am not responding to any unknown numbers and even If i receive as per your suggestion I will choose to call back instead of acting merely on their instructions.

 

So glad you were able to figure out what to do and not fall into their trap. The cops did mention to me that we will not receive any phone calls about an impending arrest. Also for civil cases like this immigration issues initial contact will be a letter. Even when the cops do come in we have to verify our details like in our case if it was visa fraud the cops obviously should have visa numbers, passport numbers etc.
The phone number indeed looked authentic, the call was supposed to be from ICE. That was the main reason i got fooled.
I am moving ahead with a valuable lesson. Thank you very much for sharing your experience.

 

Thanks sarvantaryamini. I also do not usually pick any unknown numbers somehow randomly picked this one. However now I am being extra cautious.

 

Yes my DH sensed something was wrong when i did not pick the calls and he just could not understand where i would go alone in this new country. His message did end my ordeal and was a massive relief. The worst part was in this whole fiasco i became so blank that i did not contact my only support system. He too went through a tense situation without being able to contact me. By god's grace we are safe now.
I loved reading your Chess With My Pin. Your butter fingers saved you indeed. Thanks for sharing.