Sheriff's Office Issues SCAM Warning

Santa Barbara - November 10th, 2011

The Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office is advising citizens to be wary of sharing personal information with unknown callers to avoid becoming victims of a popular phone scam.

Last week, an elderly woman in the Santa Ynez Valley received a telephone call from a scam artist. Fortunately, the caller disconnected when the potential victim became suspicious.

Typically, there are both male and female suspects involved, as the scammers attempt to elicit information about family members so one of the suspects can pretend to be a relative of the victim.  When the potential victim answers the telephone, the suspect will say something like, “Your grandson has been in an accident” or, “Your granddaughter is in county jail” in an effort to prey on the victim’s fears.

Most of the time, in a panic, the victim will say the name of a relative at which time, a male or female will then get on the telephone and impersonate that relative. They usually say they’ve been in an accident or have some sort of an emergency that requires money be sent right away.  Once on the hook, the victim is instructed to wire funds to a location where the suspect will collect the money, which can be thousands of miles away.  The suspects are very convincing, especially to elderly suspects who may not have that much contact with grandchildren, may not hear very well, etc.

Suspects have access to lots of information about us via the internet. We should all be cautious about telephone calls and emails from people requesting information or claiming to be a relative in distress.   If you receive a call such as this, be sure you know who you are talking to and ask some questions about who they are and what they know. Scammers will most likely hang up if you start asking them questions to confirm their identity. If you do believe you have been the victim of a scam artist, be sure to contact your local law enforcement agency.

For more information regarding news related issues
please contact Drew Sugars, Public Information Officer.

Business Hours: (805) 681-4100
EMAIL:pio@sbsheriff.org