Police: Beware of scam artists

There’s little law enforcement agencies can do once money has been lost to a scam. So education is the key.
Todd Wickey, an investigator with Portland Police Department, Nathan Springer, Portland’s police chief, and Jay County Sheriff Ray Newton spoke at the Jay County Chamber of Commerce luncheon Tuesday about ways business owners and residents can protect themselves from fraud and scams.
“There’s a scam for everything,” Wickey said. “The purpose is for the scammer to get you to part with your money, and they’ll do whatever they can to get that accomplished.”
And once the goal is accomplished, there’s virtually nothing law enforcement can do to help victims, Wickey said. Therefore, he aims to educate the public about different types of scams to help people protect themselves from becoming victims.
“I try to cut this off before it happens,” he said.
Popular scams include international checks and lotteries. Victims send money out of the country to pay “taxes and fees” on a prize only to never see the prize or hear from the scammer again.
The best advice Wickey has for people who may receive these checks or notices that they’ve won a lottery is to not do anything with it.
“The big thing is don’t let the money go,” he said. “If you give the money out, somebody is going to get rich and it’s not going to be any of us here.”
Other scams include ploys on popular websites like Craigslist and eBay, pleas for debt relief or emails purporting to be from the IRS saying the victim owes money.
Craigslist scams typically advertise a nice item for a low price. Wickey said he was looking for a horse trailer and found a nice one on Craigslist for well below market value.
The advertisement just listed an email and no phone number. Once Wickey made contact, the seller said he worked on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico and the horse trailer was in Arizona. The seller asked Wickey to send a check, saying he would then ship the trailer to Indiana for inspection.
That was a red flag.
So Wickey said he had travel plans in Arizona and would inspect the trailer there. The seller became belligerent. The advertisement was a scam.
If a situation seems too good to be true, it’s probably a scam, Wickey said.
“If you’re concerned, give us a call,” he said. “Don’t let something go to somebody you don’t know. That’s kind of a rule of thumb.”
Newton discussed the benefits of Nixle, a program that allows the sheriff’s office to send mass texts to those signed up to receive them.
The texts typically include information about accidents, road closures and weather, but can be used for other announcements as well.
On Tuesday, the sheriff’s office sent a notification stating that it doesn’t endorse any historical maps for Portland.
That was in response to a report from a local business owner, who said a solicitor had called asking for sponsorship money claiming to have the sheriff’s office’s support.
Through the Nixle system, the sheriff’s office was able to let users know that wasn’t the case.
“We try to give all kinds of information out if you have a cell phone, if you have a smart phone where you can get text messages,” he said.