FTC Warns of Fake Officials Threatening to Deactivate Phone Numbers

According to the Federal Trade Commission, a new phone scam has callers posing as FTC officials who claim a person's phone number has been linked to scams committed in another country. The caller threatens to deactivate the number unless the person cooperates.

The call does not stop there. The fake official reads off a badge ID, which is also fake, then transfers the call to a fake police officer to file a report. If the person hesitates, the scammers tell them to search online for the police department's number and call it back directly, which feels like independent verification but simply reaches a different person working the same scam.

How the pressure builds in stages

Each step of this scam exists to make the next one easier to believe. The first call plants fear with a threat to cut off phone service. The badge ID adds a prop. The transfer to a fake police officer adds a second voice, which makes the story sound corroborated. The instruction to call back a number found online is the step the scam depends on most, because it turns the victim into their own verifier, searching for a number the scammers already expect them to find and dial, where more people involved in the scam are waiting to answer.

Once someone calls that number, the scammers ask for an ID and other personal information for the supposed report, and tell the person to keep the conversation secret. Secrecy is doing work here too: it cuts the victim off from anyone who might recognize the pattern. The final stage brings the claim of arrest, tied to the same scams the phone number was supposedly involved in, and a demand to travel to another country unless a security deposit is paid.

None of it is real. The FTC states plainly that a real FTC employee will never ask someone to send money, never connect someone to another person who asks for money, never threaten to disconnect a phone number, never tell someone to keep a conversation secret, and never text a photo of an employee ID to prove identity. Each of those is a scripted move in this particular call, which is why the FTC lists them as fixed tells rather than general advice.

This kind of layered impersonation, official call, fake badge, transferred call, a second scripted voice, is the pattern Flggd watches for across reports, because the shape repeats even when the agency being impersonated changes.

Anyone who gets a call like this can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov. The agency's own description of the scam is a useful reference for recognizing the next version of it, since the script is likely to resurface with a different agency's name attached.