510-240-8816

WARNING:  If you see this number on your Caller ID, ignore it.  These are criminals trying to steal your credit and possibly your identity.

I have received several calls from this same number on my mobile during business hours.  The "caller" was a female robo-voice saying I had received a $9,000 grant from the "United States Federal Grant Department" (really?!?).  Of course, I had not applied for any grant so it was obviously a scam.

I was curious to see who these morons might be, so I called back their number from a phone not associated with my name.  A man with a heavy-accent (India? Pakistan?) answered, also saying it was the "United States Federal Grant Department".  I tried to ask him which department it was, where I could contact them, if they had an address or website - basically just tried to waste his time and delay him from trying to steal from someone else.

He stuck to a script (and you could hear other people in the background so it was probably some type of a call center, maybe offshore) and never let me ask anything.  He was mumbling something about Bitcoin and credit cards, so I asked to "speak to his manager".  He got VERY angry very quickly, so I cut him off.

These guys are obviously crooks.  Avoid them.  There is no "US Federal Grant Department" and the government does NOT call people randomly to "give away" grant money.  These guys are like roaches and will probably abandon this number and spoof a new one, so be careful.