Sheriff Warns Residents to Beware of a New Scam

Sheriff Patrick Ray is urging you to beware of a scam that has been occurring here and in some counties surrounding DeKalb.
According to Sheriff Ray, the way this scam operates is a caller telephones a residence and tells the person answering the phone that their child, spouse, grandchild, or other relative has had some kind of accident and needs the family to wire money to them. “Most of the people that I have talked to about the scam here in our county said that the caller has given the correct name of the relative who is supposedly the victim of the accident. It is unknown at this time how the caller is getting that information and name of the relative. In one case, the caller told a grandparent that their grandchild had been in a terrible car accident and that the child was in a hospital and needed money wired to them so that he could get medical treatment. In this case, the grandparent did not fall for the scam.”
Sheriff Ray advises you not to panic if you get one of these calls and try to contact the family member (alleged accident victim) first before you do anything. “If you need assistance in contacting the victim, let us help you and never wire any money or give anyone your credit or debit card numbers.”