The Regional News
Southwest Regional Publishing
Palos Park Commissioner G. Darryl Reed let his guard down for just a few minutes.
And Artificial Intelligence scammers burned him.
In recent village council meetings, Police Commissioner Dan Polk has warned residents that AI scammers are getting more dangerous by sending realistic-looking emails and texts asking people for credit card information.
Reed has paid attention to those warnings. As a lawyer, he usually turns a skeptical eye toward communications that seem like frauds.
But he was a victim on Feb. 7, and at the Feb. 10 meeting, he urged residents to continue to be careful.
“I received a text from what I thought was the Illinois Tollway Authority,” Reed said. “They said I had unpaid tolls of $6.60. Being as anal as I am, I jumped right online to pay it.”
But he used the embedded address on the text.
“I put in my credit card information and then I got a message that said I needed to reconfirm that,” Reed said. “I’m like ‘wait a minute.’ So, I stopped.”
He realized that his tollway account has an automatic replenishment and would not have unpaid tolls but by that time it was too late.
“So, Saturday I was in Hong Kong making purchases and then the next day I was in Paris making purchases,” Reed said.
Reed said he received a call from his credit card representatives asking if he was making purchases in Hong Kong and Paris. After confirming that he didn’t, he had to go through the hassle and nightmare of canceling the card and getting a new one.
Polk said that the tollway scam has been prevalent of late.
“If you have an account with the tollway and it replenishes so if you get a notice that you owe $6.60, you might want to go to your account and check it out,” Polk said, and added that scammers also try to find victims via PayPal notices.
“If something seems funky to you, go to the original source,” Polk said.
But scammers were not done trying to pick on Reed.
He said that hours before the meeting, he received a phone call from someone claiming to be from his bank saying that someone was attempting to change his password and that if he entered six digits into the phone, it would be taken care of.
He didn’t bite on this one.
“Always make sure that if you give out your credit card information that it is a valid vendor,” Reed said. “They are getting good with the Artificial Intelligence stuff. I mean real good. Don’t take anything for granted.”
Appointments
The council made a handful of reappointments at the meeting.
- Edward Marcyn was reappointed to the Plan Commission through June 1, 2029.
- Vanetta Wiegman and Nancy Konior were reappointed to the Zoning Board of Appeals through June 1, 2029.
- Loretta Gaidas was reappointed to the Recreation Board through June 1, 2027.
- Denise Cowan and Betty Hruska were reappointed to the Beautification Committee through June 1, 2027.
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