MERIDIAN, Idaho — Scammers are using personal information to talk people into sending them money. Idaho News 6 spoke with local woman who almost fell victim when she got a call that someone was threatening to hurt a family member.
- Report a scam, or attempted scam, to Scam Tracker, by the Better Business Bureau.
- If you have been scammed out of money, call or visit your local police station to report the crime.
- Government agencies and other legit organizations will never demand money over the phone.
- If a loved one is being threatened, try to ensure they are okay by reaching out to them separately.
(Broadcast Transcript)
“After he started demanding money, he started saying, ‘I’m going to hurt her,” said Treasure Valley local Lynn Shelton. She was terrified to find herself a target of a scam... when she answered a phone call on Friday morning.
“He started making physical threats, ‘I’ve got her and you’re not going to get her back,’” said Shelton.
“Unless you ‘give me?’ How much was it?” asked Triepke.
“Originally it was $2,000” said Shelton.
The scammer, who called with a 2-0-8 area code phone number, told Shelton her family member was in a car accident, too injured to talk on the phone.
She's still so concerned, she asked we not reveal identifying information.
“Sometimes we do that, if we can’t talk, we tell other people, here, ‘tell them what’s going on.’ So okay [I’m thinking] so far legit… Then they said, ‘well you need to come to this location,’,” said Shelton.
While the scammers knew where Lynn's loved one worked... she wanted to make sure this was a real emergency… so she asked the caller questions which they didn’t know the answers to.... leading Lynn to get in the car... and drive to her family member's workplace in Meridian.
“I walked in, saw her, I kinda did the, ‘You okay?’ look, and she’s like ‘yeah, what?’,” said Shelton
“So what was her reaction to you getting the phone call?” asked Triepke.
“Oh, it freaked us all out,” said Shelton.
Luckily, Shelton never gave them a penny, and, more importantly, her family member was safe.
When she went to file a police report with Meridian PD, they didn’t take it, so I asked an officer why that is.
“Typically we’ll take a report once the crime is committed. Oftentimes, you know, when a resident is smart about not falling prey to the scam, the actual crime hasn’t been committed, they haven’t lost money or anything like that so there’s no financial loss,” said Marc Riggs with Meridian Police Dept.
Officer Riggs says you should call or visit your local police station if a scammer takes any money.
He also tells me their department is notified of phone scams almost daily, so here’s what you should look out for, “If there anything that sounds like there's this push to do this action oftentimes it has to do with money. I would always just tell people to be very cautious on that, pump the brakes, slow down, call your loved ones like the person who mentioned did.”
Scammers don’t discriminate... and anyone could become a victim.
Shelton says she wants her neighbors to know how common these calls can be, even in smaller cities, “When it goes to the point where it’s a hostage for money situation, I hadn’t heard about that here. I want people to know this is here.”
