IDAHO FALLS – The Bonneville County Sheriff’s Office is alerting the public about a popular phone scam where the caller pretends to be law enforcement.
It’s one of the most common scams, with the callers often trying to convince the victims they missed a court hearing, jury duty, or have warrants for their arrest.
Some scam calls even use technology that allows the actual phone number of local law enforcement to appear on a caller ID.
The goal of the scam is to convince you that you are facing arrest or jail time for a variety of reasons, but usually, the call ends with the caller asking for money, saying that you need to pay some sort of fee.
While deputies and local law enforcement do often call people by phone to talk about pending issues or cases, there is never a time when money is needed over the phone to take care of an issue.
Here are a few things to think about if you receive a suspicious call from a government officer or entity that you are unsure about:
- Deputies, police officers, and court personnel will never call and ask you for money over the phone to resolve warrants, jury or court issues. Law enforcement will also not ask for the purchase of a gift card, money card, etc. at a business or over the internet in order to avoid an arrest.
- If you have not been tied to any court cases, business, or issues recently and have not received official notice by mail or service of court paperwork by a deputy or process server, it’s worth looking up the…