14 DAY TRIAL // The Better Business Bureau (BBB) warns consumers about phone scams that try to scare them into paying fines in order to avoid imprisonment for visiting the WikiLeaks website.
People receive automated phone calls with prerecorded messages, which claim their IP address was caught visiting the WikiLeaks website.
They are told they face $25,000 or $250,000 fines or imprisonment if they don't pay a smaller fine immediately.
The caller ID is spoofed and the targets are instructed to leave a message about how they want to handle the payment.
The BBB points out that military personnel are more at risk of believing this scam, because the Pentagon has banned troops from accessing WikiLeaks.
"Consumers who get phone calls from strangers need to keep their guard up, especially when the caller makes threats based on bogus accusations – that the consumer has failed to pay an old debt, or has committed some kind of crime, and has to pay up immediately.
"Insist on a written statement of what you owe. Don’t pay it if it’s fake. Don’t provide your bank account, credit card, or social security number. And report the threat to the FTC and your state attorney general -and, if it’s a threat of personal harm, call the police," advises Robert Schroeder, Northwest Regional Director of the Federal Trade Commission.
If there was any doubt left, visiting WikiLeaks is not illegal. People might be subject to restrictions at their work place, due to their employer's internal policies, but otherwise there is no law that prevents them to visit the whistleblower site.
However, with all the attention the organization and its founder, Julian Assange, have been getting from the media in recent months, it's no surprise that cybercriminals targeted it.
Vishing scams are by no means the only WikiLeaks-themed threats out there. We also repored about rogue emails purporting to come from the controversial site, which directed users to malicious Web pages.