PARIS – The Oxford County Sheriff’s Office is warning of another phone scam that has surfaced in the area: This one went so far as to include not just a made-up story of winning a jackpot, but also included a police officer impersonation.
Linda Hooker, who investigates local scams for the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office, reported that a man who called himself James Stewart dialed an elderly person in the area and said something to the effect the person had won hundreds of thousands of dollars!
He said the money had been won two or three years ago in a sweepstakes and then been lost, and that an investigator had recently located it.
When the elderly person said that local police would have to check this out, Stewart asked for the name of the local police department.
A few minutes later, a man saying his name was Mr. Fox called the elderly person and said he was from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office and that he would be at her house the next morning when the courier arrived. The courier, according to Fox, would collect the $2,900 the person needed to pay in order to receive the winnings, and Fox would be on hand to reassure anyone about the authenticity of the sweepstakes claim.
The caller’s number was disguised on the phone identification box, Hooker said, making it nearly impossible to investigate.
The person receiving the calls knew enough to alert the police, she said. But many elderly people might not be as sharp in detecting a scam, and they need to be extra wary, Hooker said.
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