Caller pretends to be detective in phone scam

HOUSTON (KTRK) -- We have a consumer alert from a Houstonian who says he got a phone call from someone claiming to be a police officer. But he quickly figured out that officer was more likely perpetrating some sort of con.

Marty McVey got a disturbing phone call this week.

"The person indicated that I'd been a victim of identity theft and that Bank of America had reported it to the HPD fraud division," said McVey.

The recording had the following: "The message is regarding identify theft. It appears somebody used Mr. McVey's identity, so I need to speak to him."

The caller heard on the voice message says she's a police officer.

"Yeah, this is Detective Moore calling for Mr. McVey," the recording stated.

McVey called her back at the number she provided for her General Investigations Unit and talked to her for 20 minutes and was told someone had taken out $10,000 in credit in his name and was in custody before he realized something wasn't right.

"The person was asking questions about my current address, what time of day I would return home," said McVey.

When he asked for specifics about his case, Detective Moore hung up.

McVey says he talked to HPD about it. The department could not confirm anything to us but we did find references to Detective Moore and her General Investigators Unit on the Internet, dating back three years with people warning of a scam.

McVey is politically well connected both locally and in Washington and the owner of a financial investment firm and warns if he can target - so can anyone.

"Either I've been targeted or I'm already a victim of identity theft without even knowing it," he said.

McVey says he's already hired a company to place fraud alerts on his credit and to investigate whether or not he's already a victim of identity theft.