Con artists are calling up intended victims in Wyoming and telling them their Social Security cards have been suspended.

The scam is being widely reported in Sweetwater County but is also known to have been used in Laramie County and quite likely in other areas of the state as well. According to the Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office, the caller typically calls people up and tells them their Social Security number has been suspended. The call is intended to get victim's Social security information.

People are being advised to hang up and not give the caller any information.

A variation on the Social Security scam features callers contacting people and telling them they are being charged in Federal Court with Social Security fraud. In some cases, this scam tries to get victims to "pay a fine" to avoid further legal action, while other times it is used as an attempt to gather personal information.

The fraud scam calls often show up on caller ID as numbers in New York state or southern California. But with the increased used of "spoofing"--or the ability to make phony numbers show up on the victim's caller ID--, the calls can appear to originate in Wyoming or just about anywhere else in the country.

Once again, recipients of these calls are being advised to hang up immediately. Many scam calls will leave voicemail messages. In those cases, the calls should not be returned.

Sam Shumway of the Wyoming AARP says the best thing to do when receiving an obvious scam call is to hang up before the call can go to voice mail. That is because if robocalls are being used, voice mail registers as a response to the call, which may encourage scammers to keep targeting that phone number.

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