By Associated Press - Wednesday, February 5, 2020

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - The FBI is warning of a phone scam in Virginia in which the caller claims to be an FBI agent.

The bureau said in a press release on Wednesday that targets of the scam are typically told that criminal charges have been brought against them. The fake FBI agent claims that he or she can help resolve the matter before asking for money or personal information.

The scammers often call from a spoofed number that shows up on caller ID as coming from the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office, shown as 757-455-0100.

The FBI is advising people to hang up immediately when these calls come in and to report them to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

Federal agencies do not call people demanding financial or personal information. The FBI says there were nearly 14,000 victims of this type of fraud in 2019 and that losses totaled more than $124 million.

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