An old scam reappeared in San Luis Obispo County with a new disguise.
In December 2022, the SLO County Sheriff’s Office issued a warning about scam phone calls where swindlers impersonate members of local law enforcement.
“Typically, in the past, we would get reports of these types of scams around the holidays,” Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tony Cipolla told New Times on Jan. 3. “But now it seems they occur throughout the year and not just targeted at one specific timeframe.”
According to the public alert, scammers use technology that warps the caller ID to show that the call is coming from the Sheriff’s Office. When the call is picked up, the callers warn residents that a warrant is out for their arrest because they failed to appear for jury duty. These callers then inform residents that the warrant can be cleared by providing the information from their Green Dot card or prepaid debit card.
Cipolla added that reports of this scam come from all over the county and often target senior citizens.
“The scams usually are the same type from year to year but will sometimes add a new twist to it,” he said via email. “In the most recent case, they included the names of actual judges to make their ‘pitch’ sound even more official.”
Roughly a year ago, Orcutt resident and mental health professional Dr. Nicole Dolan received a call from a man claiming to be a SLO County Sheriff’s Office sergeant, according to previous New Times reporting. Using heavy police jargon, the fraudster told her that she missed a subpoena to testify for a client. It resulted in Dolan paying him $5,000.
Nationally, imposter fraud is on the rise. According to data from the Federal Trade Commission, 2021 tallied nearly 1 million reports of imposter scams, with approximately a third of them being people posing as government officials.
Cipolla said that two other ploys also plague residents—Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and grandparent scams.
“The caller poses as an IRS representative who tells the victim that they owe money to the IRS, and they must pay through a pre-loaded debit card or wire transfer, or they could face jail time,” he said.
He added that the IRS never calls to demand immediate payment or that taxes be paid without giving the chance to question or appeal the amount allegedly owned.
“The IRS will never ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone or threaten to bring in law enforcement to have you arrested for not paying,” Cipolla said.
The grandparent scam is one where the imposter poses as a grandchild in jail or in a hospital in a foreign country. They usually demand money for bail or emergency medical treatment. Cipolla advised residents to verify the call by immediately contacting the actual grandchild’s number or another family member to determine legitimacy. He added that money should never be wired based on a phone or email request.
“Resist the pressure to act quickly. Wiring money is like giving cash, once you send it, you cannot get it back,” Cipolla said. “The same goes for a pre-paid debit card. There’s virtually no way to trace where the money is sent or who receives the money.”
This article appears in Jan 5-15, 2023.