By Journal Staff
The Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office is warning residents against providing any personal information to callers identifying themselves as deputies attempting to settle a supposed fraud complaint over the telephone. The phony deputies say the information is necessary to resolve the issue to avoid arrest on fraud charges and, when calling, are able to display the numbers 9-1-1 on a recipient’s caller I.D. in an attempt to authenticate their identity.
Callers impersonating deputy status with the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office (Fla.) are requesting personal information over the phone to, as they say, arrange payment for traffic tickets. According to the sheriff’s office, the caller is spoofing a dispatch number through caller I.D.
And, finally, in the interest of year-end giving and fraudulently receiving, phone scammers in various parts of the country are calling residents asking for donations to support their local 9-1-1 centers, promote school teams, or to bail grandchildren out of jail and, in some cases, using 9-1-1 as the caller’s office-based number. According to WHEC News in New York, troopers from the Canandaigua Headquarters say an elderly couple wired $9,000 in cash to a person they thought was their grandson. A day later, they found their grandson and he was never in trouble nor did he call them for money.
