Sheriff warns residents about phone scam.
By Allison Scarbrough, Editor.
HART — Oceana County Sheriff Craig Mast is warning residents that a phone scam is making its rounds in the area, and citizens should be careful to not fall victim to it.
Senior citizens are being targeted, Mast said, and in some cases, the scam has been successful.
“They will call and say that their grandkid has been in an accident or is in jail, and they need to quickly send them money,” he said. “They will tell them to not tell their mom and dad.” That way, the scammers can get the senior citizen to send them money before other family members find out.
Often they have the victims wire the the money to them.
In some cases, they will call and tell them that they have won Publisher’s Clearinghouse, but they have to pay the taxes up front. One scammer went so far as to have a Port City cab drive from Muskegon to Oceana County to pick up an elderly woman to take her to the post office so she could send a check. Luckily, a family member intervened before she went on the cab ride, Mast said. “But it went that far,” he said.
“If you receive a phone call claiming that you won and you have to pay to get it, it’s a scam,” the sheriff said. “Call your family or call your local police department.”
Mast said he will google the phone numbers that victims receive calls from, and usually they are identified as a fraudulent phone scam. “They’re almost always out of state or out of the country.”
Mast said he often visits the Oceana County Council on Aging senior center and warns senior citizens about these types of scams.
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