We are alerting the public of a common scam active now involving individuals claiming to be from the Scotts Bluff County Sheriff’s Office.
During these calls, scammers attempt to collect a fine in lieu of arrest for failing to report for jury duty or other offenses. The callers tell victims they can avoid arrest by purchasing a prepaid debit card such as a Green Dot card or gift card and read the card number over the phone to satisfy the fine. Legitimate court employees and other law enforcement officials will never call to solicit this type of personal or financial information from you. No law enforcement agency will ever ask for a credit/debit or gift card number or bank routing numbers or ask for funds to be wired for any purpose.
Scammers use many tactics to sound credible. The scammers sometimes provide information like badge numbers, names of actual law enforcement officials and judges, and courthouse addresses. They may also spoof their phone numbers to appear on caller ID as if they are calling from the court or a government agency.
If you believe you were a victim of such a scam, you are encouraged to report the incident to your local law enforcement agency and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center https://www.ic3.gov/ .
Things to remember:
• Law Enforcement will never ask for credit/debit card/gift card numbers, wire transfers, or bank routing numbers for any purpose. Any unknown caller asking for any of this information is a scammer!
• Do not divulge personal or financial information to unknown callers. Never purchase any type of gift card on instructions from someone you don’t know and report the card number to the caller. If you do, your money is gone and it’s extremely difficult to recover.
• Report scam phone calls to your local law enforcement agency and the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center https://www.ic3.gov/
• Authenticate calls by calling your local law enforcement. DO NOT call numbers provided to you by any suspicious caller. DO NOT trust caller ID, scammers can choose the number you see! The non-emergency number for the Scotts Bluff County Communications Center is 308-436-6666.