Latest phone scam involves impersonating local police

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

’Tis the season to be jolly — and also the season to be on high alert for phone scams and “porch pirates.”

For the Charles City Police Department, one new phone scam isn’t just serious, it’s personal.

The CCPD has received reports of a scam where the phone number that comes up on Caller ID is actually the Police Department’s number, and the caller claims to be a representative of the local department.

‘We don’t appreciate it, obviously,” said CCPD Chief Hugh Anderson. “We don’t like it when people use our good name to try and raise money for nefarious reasons.”

The CCPD non-emergency number is 228-3366, and that number — or a number very close to that — will come up on Caller ID. The caller will tell whoever answers the phone that they are “raising money for children.”

Anderson said that although oftentimes phone scammers will falsely claim they represent law enforcement, this latest scam — where the caller claims to be soliciting charitable donations in CCPD’s name — is unusual.

“They can spoof anybody’s number,” Anderson said. “We actually had one report recently of a person who was getting a scam call from his own number.”

Anderson made it clear that the CCPD is not conducting an active fundraising campaign for children, or for any other charity.

“We always like to help children, but we are not actively calling people to raise money in any way,” Anderson said. “If we ever try to raise money for anything, we do it in a way where people know it’s definitely us.”

Anderson said that if anyone gets such a call, the best thing to do is to immediately cut the call off.

“Just hang up. I know some people like to play it out with the caller,” he said. “It may be funny to lead them on at the time, until you start getting robocalled over and over again as they try to get back at you.”

Anderson said that there are many phone scams continually going on, and that the scams seem to evolve. Lately there has been a twist on what’s been known as the “IRS scam,” where the caller tells the victim “your social security number has been compromised.”

The scammer will use that premise in an attempt to get private financial information from the victim, or even steal his or her identity.

Sometimes, the caller will claim to be representing a bank or credit card company, rather than the IRS. Anderson said that, unfortunately, callers are typically in another state or even another country, and local police have no way of tracking them down.

“In most cases, we aren’t able to retrieve the money people lose to these scams,” Anderson said.

In the IRS phone scam, the caller claims to represent the IRS or the U.S. Social Security Administration and threatens to have the caller arrested for not paying taxes.

“The big thing is, never give personal information out over the phone,” Anderson said.

Scammers prey on victims by saying they owe the IRS money. They insist victims pay immediately through a pre-loaded credit card or wire transfer to avoid arrest, deportation or suspension of a driver’s or business license.

Anderson said that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) will never initiate contact with you over the phone to ask for money or personal information — it’s always through a letter first.

According to an informational IRS release regarding the scam, the IRS never asks for a credit card number over the phone or requests the use of a pre-paid debit card or wire transfer and never initiates contact with taxpayers by email, text message or social media to request personal or financial information.

The IRS also never asks for personal identification (PIN) numbers, passwords or similar confidential access information for credit card, bank or other financial accounts and never discusses the possibility of arrest from the police department, any license revocation or deportation — because those are not under the authority of the IRS.

Anderson said that the CCPD has also had a recent report of someone locally getting victimized by the “grandparents scam,” when a caller identifies as the recipient’s grandchild or other relative and asks for money, usually to get out of jail.

Anderson said to always independently verify a caller’s identity before giving out personal information or sending money anywhere.

“Normally people in jail would be making that call themselves,” he said. “You can ask to call them right back. Just verify everything.”

Phone scams aside, what’s known as “porch piracy” is a more low-tech, old-fashioned way of stealing. Thieves will simply walk up and take packages that have been left on the front stoop of a house by a delivery person.

“We have unfortunately have had reports of that going on locally,” said Anderson, who said he’s seen videos of it happening locally. “It’s really hard to prevent sometimes.”

Recent reports claim that there are hundreds of thousands of porch pirate thefts every year, and even though many homes now have video cameras set up on their front doors, criminals will still cover their faces and disguise themselves or move fast enough to not get caught on camera.

“Make arrangements, if you can,” Anderson said. “See if you can have a friend or neighbor pick up your package for you.”

Other steps to protect oneself from porch pirates include having packages delivered to your workplace, having a package delivered to the home of a friend or relative who you know will be home at the time of the delivery, having packages held at the local post office for pickup, requesting signature confirmation of a package at delivery or requesting that a carrier leave your package in a spot out of plain view.

Customers can also inquire into alternative delivery options. Several companies now offer “ship to store” options, in-garage or car trunk delivery as well as in-home key delivery service.