Warm, dry and breezy afternoon after a comfortable morningEvent held in Naples for National Crime Victims Week
Public domain. Charotte County Sheriff’s Office is warning community members about recent phone schemes with callers claiming to be members of the sheriff’s office. According to CCSO, “These schemes are intended to convince the victim that they have outstanding debts or an active warrant and failure to rectify these debts will result in their arrest. The caller may then suggest that the victim purchase prepaid gift cards and provide the card and PIN numbers in order to settle those debts. The scammer may also inquire about your bank account numbers, credit card information, etc.” The sheriff’s office says CCSO will never call citizens to place them under duress, and it won’t demand people pay fines with threats of arrest. CCSO said its members will also not ask people to purchase prepaid products or ask anyone for product redemption codes. “It is my hope that when someone claims to be from CCSO, and then makes a request that doesn’t match the ideals of this office, our citizens can identify that quickly and report it,” Sheriff Bill Prummell said in the blog post. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from CCSO and asking you to provide any kind of financial information or payment, end the call immediately. If you are able to record the number from which they are calling, you are encouraged to report the scam attempt to authorities. Anyone who receives communication that asks, persuades, demands, threatens or mentions a payment method should be ended immediately. If the correspondence is via email, do not respond, (and never click on external links within a suspicious email) but you can share the details of the message to our Crime Prevention Specialist using the email below. To learn more about how to protect yourself from scams, contact the CCSO crime prevention office at 941-613-3227 or email crimeprevention@ccsofl.net.