About The times. (Gainesville, Ga.) 1972-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 2020)
LOCA^STATE The Times, Gainesville, Georgia | gainesvilletimes.com Thursday, November 19, 2020 5A Phone scams spike; India-based company indicted BY NICK WATSON nwatson@ gainesvilletimes.com Flowery Branch Police investigator Robin Kemp said phone scam calls have escalated in the past six months with dozens of reports, with other officers and even Kemp himself receiving calls. “At least once or twice a week, I’ll get a report like that, somebody calling about that,” Kemp said. Fortunately, all of the peo ple Kemp has spoken with for these reports hung up on the callers. “That’s not to say there aren’t victims out there that once they’ve figured they’ve been a victim, they’re just, out of embarrassment, won’t come forward to report it,” he said. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia announced an indictment Tuesday, Nov. 17, concerning an India- based voice-over-internet- protocol provider and its director, alleging more than $20 million was taken after millions of robocalls in the U.S. The attorney’s office also said a federal court ordered a server farm to stop providing servers to the defendants. “The defendants bom barded American con sumers with scam calls, causing emotional and finan cial devastation, including to vulnerable and elderly individuals,” said U.S. Attor ney Byung J. “BJay” Pak in a statement. “Those who facilitate fraudulent calls into the United States will be investigated and brought to justice.” There is no evidence any cases reported to local law enforcement are linked directly to the federal indictment. But Hall County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Derreck Booth said the community service officer receives complaints about phone scams almost every day, though not all of the reports are like the case reported by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Booth said there have been six cases classified as “fraudulent telephone solici tation” in 2020 and nine total since late 2018. SUSAN WALSH I Associated Press Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 10, on a probe of the FBI’s Russia investigation. “Based on the informal accounts of the community service officer, the number of complaints like or similar to this are obviously much higher than the nine coded as ‘fraudulent telephone solicitation,”’ Booth wrote in an email. Gainesville Police Cpl. Jessica Van said the depart ment received seven reports of reported scam calls since Oct. 1. In two of those cases, the person lost money. “Most of the reports indi cate the victims were being vigilant and did not fall for the scam,” Van wrote in an email. “There was one case where the victim was elderly and a family mem ber intervened, preventing the victim from withdraw ing money to send. This is a good reminder for every one to look out for their elderly family members and friends, to make sure they don’t fall for phone scams.” According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the India- based callers pretended to be from different govern ment agencies or businesses. “The callers allegedly used multiple frauds, including Social Security impersonation, IRS imper sonation, and loan scams,” according to the attorney’s office. “As part of a Social Security scam, India-based callers posed as federal agents in order to mislead victims into believing their Social Security number was involved in crimes. Callers threatened arrest and the loss of the victims’ assets if the victims did not send money.” Kemp said phone scam mers will often “spoof” the phone number to appear as if it’s coming from the legiti mate business or govern ment agency on the caller ID. “Once that money is gone, it’s gone,” Kemp said. “It’s just very difficult if not impossible to investigate and make charges against these folks because they are out of the country.” WOW! Healthy, handpicked fresh from the grove! 3 unique varieties. 12 delicious oranges! Call 1-855-524-8843 to order item 442X or Visit HaleGroves.com/MN260 Order Item #442X, mention Code HNVH-N260 for your $15 savings. Only $19.99* (reg. $34.99), plus $5.99 shipping & handling. Satisfaction completely guaranteed. This gift ships in December at the peak of freshness. Order by Dec. 18,2020 for GUARANTEED Christmas delivery. AZ, CA, TX & LA order by Dec. 15, 2020. Since 1947. Hale Groves, Vero Beach, FL 32966 IC: HNVH-N260 Call now and SAVE 43%! *Plus $5.99 handling per pack to the 48 contiguous states. Limited time offer, good while supplies last. Not valid with any other offer. Limit 5 boxes per customer. Graham facing ethics complaint over Ga. ballots BY MEG KINNARD Associated Press CHARLESTON, S.C. — Three attorneys have filed an eth ics complaint against U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, accusing the South Carolina Republican of pressuring a Georgia elections official to toss out legally cast absentee votes in the presiden tial race. In a complaint filed Wednesday with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, Claire Finkelstein, Richard Painter and Walter Shaub “urge the committee to investigate whether Senator Graham suggested that Secretary Raffens- perger disenfranchise Georgia voters by not counting votes lawfully cast for the office of president.” They also “demand clarity as to whether Senator Graham has threatened anyone with a Senate investigation of the Georgia vote tally and or taken steps to initiate such an investigation.” The complaint also requests Graham, chairman of the Sen ate Judiciary Committee, “be recused from any investigation or other Senate matter relating to alleged irregularities in the 2020 election” while any probe of his comments is ongoing. The complaint stems from comments by Georgia Secre tary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said this week that Graham asked him whether he had the power to reject cer tain absentee ballots, a question Raffensperger interpreted as a suggestion to toss out legally cast votes. Raffensperger told The Washington Post he’s faced rising pressure from fel low Republicans who want to see Democrat Joe Biden’s nar row lead in the state reversed. The Associated Press has not declared a winner in Georgia, where Biden leads President Donald Trump by 0.3 percent age points. There is no mandatory recount law in Georgia, but state law provides that option to a trailing candidate if the margin is less than 0.5 percentage points. It is AP’s practice not to call a race that is — or is likely to become — subject to a recount. Election officials have said a hand recount has turned up more than 5,000 votes in four counties that weren’t pre viously counted but won’t alter the overall outcome of the race, in which nearly 5 million votes were cast in the state. Officials have said the margin between Trump and Biden will be about 12,800 votes when those previously uncounted votes are accounted for. When Georgia voters return an absentee ballot, they have to sign an oath on an outer envelope. County election office workers are required to ensure the signature matches the one on the absentee ballot application and the one in the voter registration system, Raffensperger has said. “He asked if the absentee ballots could be matched back to the envelope,” Raffensperger told The Associated Press this week, of his conversation with Graham. “I thought that then Sen. Graham implied for us to audit the envelopes and throw out ballots of counties who had the highest frequency error rate of signatures, and I told him that’s something that we couldn’t do.” Graham spokesman Kevin Bishop called the attorneys “longtime vocal critics” of both Graham and Trump, adding, “Their complaint should be viewed in that light. ” Schaub, the former head of the federal Office of Govern ment Ethics, complained in 2017 about Graham’s tweets that he said improperly promoted Trump International Golf Club. When asked about the conversation with Raffensperger, Graham said he was “trying to find out how the signature stuff worked” and that Raffensperger “did a good job of explaining to me how they verify signatures.” Asked about Raffensperger’s interpretation that he was suggesting legally cast ballots should be thrown out, Graham said, “That’s ridiculous.” Trump and his campaign have repeatedly taken to social media to criticize Raffensperger and the way the state’s hand tally was being conducted. Once the hand tally is complete and the results certified, the losing campaign can request a recount, which would be done using scanners that read and tally the votes. NGPG Neurointerventional Surgery 1315 Jesse Jewell Pkwy SE, Ste. 300 Gainesville, Georgia 30501 Call or Request Your Appointment Online: 770-219-6520 ngpg.org/Sung-Lee ^ Northeast Georgia PHYSICIANS GROUP Sung Lee, MD Neurointerventional Surgery now seeing patients
