A caller says your phone number will be shut off, then hands you to a fake police officer

A call that opens with a badge number is the first step of a two-part routine the Federal Trade Commission described in a consumer alert dated Oct. 22, 2026. The caller claims to be an FTC official, says a phone number registered in the listener’s name is being used for scams in another country, and threatens to deactivate it. When the listener hesitates, the call is passed to a second voice posing as a police officer, who asks for a security deposit later on.

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The FTC alert, credited to Bureau of Consumer Protection staff, treats the handoff as the piece of the script people least expect. Most warnings about government impostors stop at the first caller. The version in this alert adds a second character whose job is to make the situation feel official, local and urgent after the first caller has already supplied the fear, and it adds a third beat in which the pressure turns into a demand for money.

The impostor opener: a badge ID and a deactivation threat

According to the FTC alert, the first caller says a phone is registered under the recipient’s name and number and is being used for scams in another country. The caller reads out a badge ID, which the alert says is fake, and warns that the number will be deactivated if the recipient does not cooperate. None of it can be verified on the spot, yet every element borrows authority: an agency name, an identification number, and a consequence tied to something a person depends on every day. The alert does not describe a payment demand at this stage. The first caller only has to build a problem big enough that a transfer to someone else feels like relief.

The threat works because a phone number sits behind bank logins, delivery notices, medical portals and family contact. A warning that it will be cut off sounds like a warning that everything routed through it will go dark. The alert states the agency’s standing rule: a real FTC employee will never threaten to disconnect a phone. The same list says a real employee will never text a photo of an employee ID to verify who is calling, which matters because a picture of a badge proves nothing about the person holding the handset, and anyone can attach any image to any message.

The transfer to a fake police officer

The second step is the one that sets this routine apart. The alert says the first caller connects the person to someone posing as a police officer, supposedly to file a report. That officer asks for a government ID and other personal information for the report and tells the person to keep the conversation secret. The secrecy instruction is the clearest tell in the whole script. A genuine investigation does not depend on a recipient staying quiet with relatives, a bank or a friend, and the alert lists telling people to keep conversations secret among the things an FTC employee never does. Isolation is what lets the routine continue, because the people most likely to say “hang up” are never consulted.

Hesitation does not end the call. The alert says a person who doubts the officer may be told to phone the police department directly, and is then given directions to search online for the number. Accomplices answer at the other end, so the sensible step of checking independently leads straight back into the scheme. A safer check is to end the call and reach an agency through a number printed on an official letter, a government website typed in by hand, or a local directory entry found without any instruction from the caller. The alert also says a real FTC employee will never connect a person to someone who asks for money, which closes the door on the transfer itself.

Arrest threats and the security deposit

The last stage is the money. According to the alert, the person is later told to expect arrest over scams linked to the phone number, and that the only way to avoid being sent to another country is to pay a security deposit. The alert does not name the payment methods used in this version. That gap is useful in its own right, because the FTC’s guidance on wiring money says government agencies, including the FTC, the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration and Customs and Border Protection, do not request payment by wire. A deposit demanded after an unexpected call should end the conversation however it is meant to be paid.

Arrest and deposit also contradict each other. A real arrest is not resolved by paying a private caller, and a police report does not require a security deposit. The alert places the demand after the secrecy order and after the personal data has been handed over, so by the time money is requested the caller already holds an identification document and a frightened, isolated person. Anyone who receives a call like this can report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov, the FTC’s reporting site, and the report helps the agency track which scripts are circulating.

Why government impostor scripts keep getting rewritten

Scripts like this one exist because they pay. In a June 15, 2026 release, the FTC said people reported losing about $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025, nearly triple the 2020 figure, and that impostors accounted for nearly one in three fraud reports. Within that total, government impersonation cost about $920 million, up from about $789 million in 2024. Christopher Mufarrige, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said the agency “will use every tool available to combat one of the most pernicious forms of fraud.”

The agency’s broader guidance on government imposters lists the same ingredients that appear in this call: faked caller ID, invented employee IDs or badge numbers, and the names of real employees. It advises verifying any story by contacting the organization through a phone number, website or email already known to be real, never through details supplied in the unexpected call, and it tells readers to talk to someone they trust when a stranger says a problem is serious, criminal or government-related. Each character the script adds is one more chance for a recipient to hang up.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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