Anchorage police are warning residents about a scam involving false collection calls purporting to be on behalf of Alamo Rent A Car, which seek both money and personal information from victims.
According to APD spokesperson Lt. Dave Parker, Alamo informed officers that two people -- neither of whom owed money on car rentals -- had called the company to report the bogus calls, both of which came in on their children’s cellphones from callers claiming to be with collection agencies working for Alamo.
“The callers falsely use Alamo’s name in (an) attempt to make their scam sound legitimate,” Parker wrote in a statement Tuesday. “The suspects in these attempted frauds are certainly looking for more than the money they are requesting; they are looking for personal information from unwary victims with which they can commit more fraudulent acts like (identity theft.)”
In a Thursday call from a Virginia phone number, 757-214-6785, one man was told he owed $728 as an unpaid balance from a 2007 car rental. He learned of the scam when he ran a Google search on the phone number.
An Anchorage man received a second scam call Friday from a Texas number, 210-892-1308, in which he was asked to pay a $1,600 repair bill on a car following a 2008 rental.
Parker says while the calls in the Alamo scam appear to come from U.S. numbers, many such operations are run from foreign “boiler rooms” outside the reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies.
Contact Chris Klint
