Recently, we were alerted by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security via the City of Philadelphia Commerce Department that the Philadelphia District has received several reports of scammers targeting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services customers.
The cases often involve a scammer, purporting to be a USCIS official, calling individuals and informing them that they are to pay immigration fees immediately or else they will be in jeopardy of forfeiting their pending case, losing their immigration status, or, being placed into deportation proceedings. These networks are sophisticated, often aware of sensitive information and appearing on caller IDs as the real USCIS customers service number.
Please be aware that USCIS and the Federal Trade Commission are working to disrupt and prosecute these types of scams. Please know that USCIS will never request payments over the phone. Anyone who receives a call that they believe is a scam is instructed to, first, call the real USCIS number at 1-800-365-5288, and then report the incident with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC administers an online complaint assistant that walks individuals though the reporting process, only taking minutes to complete.
Additional information regarding these scams can be found on the FTC’s Consumer Information blog.
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/who-are-you