The Kosciusko County Sheriff's Department and area law enforcement want to warn citizens of two scams that have resurfaced intensely in the past two weeks in our area.
The first is that of a scam caller makes contact with a person or business and claims that a family member or employee is in jail and needs bail money. The family member or employee is not actually in jail. The caller claims the jailed person will remain in jail for a long period of time if they are not bailed out immediately. The caller asks for money from the potential victim for this bail money and directs the potential victim to wire money to pay all or part of the bail money for the fictitiously jailed person.
The callers are very sophisticated, act and sound professional, and usually can convince the victim they know them or are at least familiar with the victim to gain their confidence, often saying that they are a “grandson”. The scam caller will fraudulently portray themselves as a police officer or a member of the jail staff to gain the confidence of the potential victim.
The second scam is the repeated request for individuals to send a portion of money in return for a large prize or check. Almost all of the callers are not from inside the United States. K.C.S.D. detectives want to remind the public that money wired or transferred through Western Union or money gram type services is not refundable and can not be recovered for the victim. Police request that you advise the callers that you are not interested and for them to stop calling your telephone.
