A woman contacted the sheriff’s office on Monday to report a fraudulent call she had received – an fell for- claiming that there was a warrant out for her arrest for failing to appear for jury duty. There was no caller ID on the phone number but it showed the call was coming from Franklin, North Carolina. The woman said that she questioned the legitimacy of the call and the male caller said that he would have his supervisor call her to prove it.
The next call came in showing the phone number of the Graham County Board of Supervisors. The male caller texted the victim 7 different documents, which included false complaint documents, false court summons and instructions on how to pay a fine through a crypto currency company called, Coin Me.
The false documents were look-alike documents and had the Graham County Court address. They cited Arizona Revised Statutes, as well as badge numbers and a Federal Government seal.
After speaking to the second person and receiving the fake warrants, the woman was, again, contacted by the original caller, who instructed her to go the Safeway Coin Me Kiosk. The caller told her that she needed to stay on the phone with him while she completed the task, which took approximately an hour. The woman said that on the way into town, she passed the Sheriff’s Office and told the unknown caller that she would just stop in there and pay the fine. The scammer told her that if she went to the sheriff’s office, she would be arrested on the warrant. He convinced her that she should just pay her fine as instructed to avoid being arrested.
The caller instructed the victim to take $5,000 out of her bank account, go to the Coin Me Kiosk at Safeway and deposit the money into the kiosk. The machine, however, would only accept $4,900.
The woman eventually realized that she was caught up in a scam and contacted her daughters, who told her to report it to authorities. She tried contacting her bank, but they were unable to help, nor was the Coin Me company.
When she reported the scam to the sheriff’s office, she was told that their office will never call her to take her money. The deputy also explained that the courts will typically send a summons through mail or have a deputy serve it in person, not through a text message. The deputy also explained that government fines are paid directly to the government agency and not through commercial companies.
