Beeville police and a local bookkeeper warned last week that someone has been calling people in town, claiming to represent the federal government and trying to get bank account information.

The bookkeeper, Simeon Garza Jr., said he was the intended victim of several attempts to obtain bank account information.

“I have received at least 5 calls on my cell phone, more often in the last 4-5 days,” Garza said.

“This call is supposed to be coming from the Federal Government Claims Department.” The caller claims to be a federal officer.

“He starts by saying that I qualify to receive a federal grant check, due to the reason that I have always filed my taxes on time and paid everything on a timely fashion. Then they want to verify and/or confirm all information so they can send me a check.”

Garza said he was tempted, at first, to provide the information. “They knew my bank name, routing number, and wanted to confirm my account number. I asked where they got their information from. They replied, from my income tax. Then that’s when they dropped the ball. Because I said if that’s so, why do they have a different bank, that I have never used for income tax purposes. I then asked for a phone number to call back and they hung up.”

Garza said the callers never gave up and they continued calling him. Again, each time he asked them for a phone number, the person on the other end of the line hung up the phone.

Garza said the callers always had an accent, as if they were from India or some other country in that part of the world.

Garza spoke to Detective Sgt. Chris Bernal, who contacted the Internal Revenue Service to check on whether or not it knew about the so-called grant checks.

IRS officials told Bernal that they already have all the information they need on taxpayers and they never call individuals to ask for bank account numbers or other private financial information.

“Never give out personal financial information over the telephone,” Bernal said. “Even if the caller has certain other information.”

Government agencies do not call people to ask for bank account numbers and other account information.

Anyone who gives out bank account or credit card account information should not be surprised to find out their checking or savings accounts have been cleaned out or that someone has run up expensive charges on their credit card accounts.

If a caller does have some information on a person’s account and they ask for more, “That’s what they’re searching for so they can gain access to that account,” Bernal said.

Bernal said federal investigators have been contacted about Garza’s case. However, investigators have little to go on in their efforts to find out the source of the calls.

The calls could be, and probably are, coming from outside the country.

The best way for people to protect themselves from phone scams is to try to find out as much information as they can from the caller.

In most cases, just as in Garza’s case, when asked for a phone number, the caller will hang up the phone.

On all cases, when someone asks for personal financial information, do not give that out to strangers over the telephone, Bernal warned.