Touchtone

Victim Location 36701

Type of a scam Government Grant

My name is A. ***. I was contacted by a foreign-sounding male informing me that as part of an initiative to curtail poverty, I had been selected for approval to receive a gov’t grant in amt of $9200. He explained that this money could be used how I needed to and wouldn’t have to be paid back. He then provided an I.D. # "ALB2271" and phone # (585) 633-7531 as being that of an alleged supervisor that I was supposed to contact immediately after call ended. So I dialed that provided # and gave the I.D. # provided and got what sounded like the same individual but the call quality was better, not too much background noise this time. (213) 271-9210 is what popped up on my caller ID along with "TOUCHTONE" for name of business. He gave this speel about being connected with the IRS and Department of Health Services and that this money would be coming from Washington, DC. He also further explained about me having to activate my money since I lived in Alabama which was a "non-tax free" state. I was asked to verify last 4 of SS#, provide my DOB, along with debit card #, CVV#, and expiration date which I regret… I asked why my routing # & acct. # wouldn’t be just as good and he ignored that. He then asked where the nearest MoneyGram was. I asked him why he needed to know that. I let him know that only scams requiring paying of money to receive money and was told the $175 was the activation fee that would be refunded once I received my grant money within 30 minutes of wiring said fee. He also asked if I had a cell phone, which I said I did, and requested that # as a 2ndary contact #. I had gotten upset and stated that I was broke and had no way to get this money. He asked me how I could tell him it wasn’t a valid detail to which I had replied that I wasn’t a [censored]ing [censored] and that there better not be any monies missing once I did get some in my acct on my own then disconnected call.