Beware of telephone scammers

DIXON – The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is alerting the public to several imposter scams recently that have defrauded unsuspecting victims of thousands of dollars.

In one of the instances, the individual claimed to be from the Federal Trade Commission. The male suspect threatened the victim with arrest if they did not pay off a debt to the U.S. government.

The scammer sent the victim a picture of a purported identification card from the FTC. The victim withdrew several thousand dollars, and the scammer agreed to go to the victim’s residence to retrieve the money. A white male arrived, and the victim walked the currency out to the suspect’s car. The male then drove away with the victim’s money.

In another incident, a separate victim saw a Microsoft pop-up on their computer indicating the integrity of their device had been compromised by a Trojan virus. A telephone number beginning with an 877 prefix came up on the screen for the victim to call.

A male responded to the caller and claimed that the victim’s bank account had been hacked. The scammer told the victim that they needed to do a “double transaction” so the bank would catch it as an error. The male then “transferred” the victim to her bank and had her access their accounts.

The victim was subsequently told that they needed to provide a “federal security deposit” from a neutral location. The victim was told to withdraw money from her bank and to advise any bank employee that the currency was for a “home improvement.” The scammer then had her make a deposit through a bitcoin ATM at an area business.

The scammer remained on the phone with the victim during this incident for the entire time.

There are several other scams circulating in the country. In some of the incidents, scammers try to collect a fine in lieu of arrest because of a claim of identity theft, failing to report for jury duty or other offenses. They then tell victims they can avoid arrest by withdrawing cash and transferring it to the government, buying a prepaid debit card such as a Green Dot card or gift card and reading the card number over the phone to satisfy the fine, or by depositing cash into bitcoin ATMs.

Scammers use many tactics to sound and appear credible. They sometimes provide information such as badge numbers, names of actual law enforcement officials and federal judges, and courthouse addresses. They also may spoof their phone numbers to appear on caller IDs as if they are calling from a government agency or the court.

If you believe you were a victim of such a scam, you can report the incident to the FBI Chicago Field Office at www.chicago.fbi.gov and to the Federal Trade Commission at www.ReportFraud.ftc.gov.