A local woman knew something wasn't right Thursday as soon as the smooth-talking man on the other end of the telephone opened his mouth.

"This is Randy from the bank," he told the woman without every mentioning his full name or the bank he represented.

He then went on with a spiel about how "the bank" was changing computers or something to that effect, and then asked the woman to grab her checkbook so he could confirm her checking account number.

"Does your routing number start with 05 or 25?" he then asked. And upon receiving an affirmative response, the smooth-talking operator then asked the woman to read to him all of the numbers at the bottom of the check.

"I'm not the brightest person in the world," the woman told The Gaffney Ledger on Thursday afternoon. "But I'm not the dumbest, either."

She hung up the phone after she told the man she was going to call her bank directly and he responded with a threat, saying her account would simply be closed.

Her bank subsequently confirmed what she already knew — no one from her bank was making calls like that and the call was nothing but a scam.

Fortunately, she didn't give any sensitive information away.

Unfortunately, she wasn't the only person to receive such a call Thursday.

The daughter of an 82- year-old Gaffney woman told The Gaffney Ledger earlier Thursday that her mother received an almost identical call from a man who neither identified himself by full name or bank.

The 82-year-old woman also was asked about the first two digits of the routing number on her check — which would be the same for almost all checks issued in the region — and then asked her to read the full routing number and bank account number.

"She said, 'No, I don't feel comfortable with this and I'm not giving you anything,'" the daughter said her mother told the caller.

In both calls, the smoothtalking operator addressed the women by name, which could mean the caller was simply going through a phone book.

"Nobody, nobody, nobody should ever be calling you, asking for that information," said Patty Guthrie, regional outreach coordinator for the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs. "The best thing you can do is just hang up the phone. Give them nothing."

Your bank already has your bank account number and routing numbers, Guthrie added, so there would be no reason for them to call you for that information.

And if the bank was making some computer changes — or was experiencing some type of "glitch" as the 82-year-old woman was told — you'd receive official notification by mail, Guthrie added.

If someone has been snared by this scam and given out personal information, Guthrie advises they should immediately contact their bank to put a stop to any fraudulent transactions. "Call them as soon as you can to let them know what's going on."

Go directly to police after talking with your bank, she added, and consider calling the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs at 1-800-922-1594 so the department can notify the public when scams target an area or when new scams arise.

The first woman said she attempted to trace the caller's number using the *69 service and it came back to an international telephone number she could not dial.