At least two Washtenaw County residents recently received phone calls claiming to be from the county's Warrants Division. In reality, they were phone scams seeking a $500 money card. Washtenaw County Sheriff's officials say some simple guidelines should be followed when people receive suspicious calls.
The missed jury duty phone calls are just the latest in a long line of phone and mail based scams. Geoff Fox of the WashtenawCounty Sheriff's Department says to avoid becoming a victim of these efforts, residents should never share private information or give money by phone.
Sergeant Fox says the next step should be to contact local law enforcement. He says if the sheriff's department can find more people that received the calls they will have a better chance at tracking down the criminals. "Each person might have experienced something that was a little bit different, that when you pull all of that together it gives us a better picture of who is doing it," he says.
Fox says unfortunately many of these scams try to target elderly people who often choose not to tell anyone because they're embarrassed when they realize what happened.
Like 89.1 WEMU on Facebook and follow us on Twitter— Andrew Cluley is the Ann Arbor beat reporter, and anchor for 89.1 WEMU News. Contact him at 734.487.3363 or email him acluley@emich.edu.
