MONTGOMERY COUNTY–In a press release, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office alerted the public about two recent scams.
“The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office has recently encountered some new scams that we want you to know about,” the announcement said. “The bad guys are hacking into a cell phone and using the contacts within to find victims.”
Suspects are impersonating the actual phone owner and are only using text messages to communicate, no voice-to-voice contact is made.
Victims are informed by the suspect that they have recently been involved in a lucrative money-making deal asking the victims to send them money to invest. Since the messages are coming from someone in their contact list, the victims believe it is legitimate.
“There have been two cases in two months. For the latest victim, the person the scammer was impersonating wasn’t a close friend, and always found some excuse to keep from actually speaking on the phone,” Chief Ed Hertling said.
“Make sure you know who you’re talking to,” he advised.
Another scam involving Facebook Messenger, in which a person is contacted by a ‘friend’ regarding a moneymaking system.
Once the victim replies to the sender, they are put into contact with a fraudulent business, which then uses the pressure-system of sending money orders to Nigeria. In return, say the thieves, the victim will receive a check from UPS for a much larger amount.
But the UPS delivery truck then has an accident and needs money to repair the truck, in this instance they even sent a photo of a UPS truck that had been wrecked. Lucky for our victim, the last payment went under investigation before any more money was lost.
“So many scams are coming out of Nigeria and more and more out of Russia now. If you’re wiring money out of the country, it’s always suspicious.”
No legitimate business will ask you to send gift cards like iTunes or MoneyGram cards.
“They’ll transfer the gift card money to their own prepaid credit card.”
“Don’t be a victim!” the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office announcement exhorts. Finding the scammer is nearly impossible and takes officers away from prosecuting horrific crime like child abuse and assault in which the perpetrator can be prosecuted.
“So it’s important to get people to protect themselves from being a victim. Protect yourself and your personal information, if it seems too good to be true, it is probably a scam,” the chief said.
