McCracken County sheriff warns of phone scams

MCCRACKEN COUNTY, Ky. (KBSI) – The McCracken County sheriff says his office is receiving reports of phone scams that are costing citizens thousands of dollars.

“A person not from our area calls and claims to be a member of the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office,” said McCracken County Sheriff Ryan Norman. “Many times, uses the correct name of a deputy or a detective and states that they missed court or have some type of warrant for their arrest and that they need to go to a bitcoin machine or some type of crypto-currency machine and pay a fine through that.”

Ryan Norman is the sheriff for the McCracken County Sheriff’s Office. He says this scam is an ongoing issue.

According to reports the scammers are directing their victims to use the bitcoin machine at Kroger on Park Avenue in Paducah, Kentucky.

Norman says police or deputies will never ask you for money over the phone. In fact, Sheriff Norman says the sheriff’s department cannot accept money from you to reduce a warrant or fine.

“If there is an arrest warrant for somebody the warrant says you shall arrest,” said Sheriff Norman. “So that’s what we’d have to do unless the judge re-sended it. So any time a person gets a phone call and says you need to go to a crypto currency machine or go buy gift cards from best buy or Walmart or somewhere or some other company that is automatically an indicator of a scam.”

According to Norman, citizens in the area have lost around $26,000 just this week and they continue to receive reports of these scam calls. Norman says they are investigating the issue but the calls are from out of the area and very hard to trace.

“They’re using computers to make the phone calls for IP addresses that bounce around,” Sheriff Norman. “It’s extremely hard to try to track down the perpetrators unfortunately.”

Norman says they target elderly individuals and young individuals. He recommends talking with your family members and encourage them not to fall victim to these scams and remind them that their local police department will never ask them for money and gift cards over the phone.

“If you think something is weird about a phone call that is reported to be from a law enforcement agency there’s nothing wrong with talking to a family member about it, or a friend,” said Sheriff Norman.

Norman says because these calls are so hard to trace it makes it almost impossible to get your money back. So, it is important to know exactly who your sending money too before you send it.