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Scam calls impersonating Ft. Bend County Sheriff's Office
FOX 26 Business Reporter Tom Zizka has more on what's happening and spoke with one woman who was targeted, but didn't fall for the scam.
FORT BEND COUNTY, Texas - Fort Bend County residents who get a call from the sheriff's office might want to think twice about who's on the line. The sheriff is warning about scammers who are impersonating his office, making some very expensive demands.
April Boyd got one of the calls in March, "The amount for each citation was $2,000, and I said,' That's a lot of money, and I'm not even guilty of anything."
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The caller said he was from the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office with a warning that she'd been cited for missing a grand jury summons and owed $4,000.
All she had to do was make a deposit and take the receipt to the sheriff to get it all resolved.
When she said she'd go direct to the office to handle it, she says the caller got irate, saying, "You're gonna' be taken into custody; you're gonna' be arrested. He said make sure you have bail money and somebody to take your car, because they're going to impound it.' 'I said, 'Well, I'm just going to take my chances."
Fort Bend County Sheriff Eric Fagan says his office started hearing the complaints about the spoofed calls, mimicking his office's phone number, late last year.
"We were shocked when people were calling our office, asking if we received the funds," he says. "We didn't know what they were talking about."
Like similar scams that have made the news, Fagan warns cold-call demands for money is not how law enforcement operates, and worries that someone might be taken-in by the scam.
"I don't want the people to feel like they did anything wrong. They're the victims, but these spoofers or scam-artists are out there," says Sheriff Fagan.
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April Boyd, for one, knows that all too well, "I'm glad I didn't give them any money or any information, but it really scared me."
Fagan says his office has four active investigations related to this scam, but that they're hard to prosecute, as the scammers are often out of the country. His advice, for people who may receive similar callS demanding money is to hang up and call authorities instead.