Pam Dudding Contributing writer
With the expansion of technological advancement, there has also been an abundant increase of creative scams in America today. They are at “our back door” daily and recently been in the face of many residents on their phones.
Sheriff Trevor Craddock recently shared that he would like the citizens of Craig County to be aware of these scams.
“There are people trying to scam the citizens of our County and across the nation,” he said. “We have had several instances here. As your Sheriff, I am asking you to please be aware of this type of activity.”
He stressed to that one should not give out any personal information such as your date of birth, social security number, credit card numbers, bank information or pin numbers “to anyone unless you are absolutely sure of who you are talking to.”
Unfortunately, there are multiple scams being created every day.
He explained some of the most recent scams which have been reported in Craig are:
- Scams that want you to give small amounts of money or gift cards to receive any large amount of money or property such as a car. These types of scams are endless and we will always have to watch out for them.
- There are scams where they try to scare you into a response, such as a family member who has been put in jail, and needs money to be released, or if you don’t pay money a warrant will be sent, and you will be arrested. This type has a tendency to hit the hearts of many, not realizing they are being scammed.
- There are scams where they will claim they are from the Social Security office of bank or credit union or the IRS.
“Most of the time people are sending monies out of state and then it is routed to various locations therefore unable to be tracked. In fact, most of the time, it is impossible to be tracked,” Craddock noted. “A lot of these scammers are sitting at a computer all day, and even if they only get one person to send them $500. Who makes $500 in a day? To them, it is worth it if one person bites.”
The Sheriff also suggested to always keep a check on your credit scores and added that most credit card companies now are more aware and assist their customers with warnings.
“The biggest thing is do not give anybody any information personal if you do not know who you are talking to,” he said. “All we can do nowadays is protect your own identity, as scammers will take it and run with it and by the time you find out, they already have you and then it is up to you to clear everything up.”
If you do suspect that it is a scam or you have been had by a scam, you can report it to the Sheriff’s Office or law enforcement agency.
“Typically, if you did not give them any money the Sheriff’s Department or police will take the information down but until someone is taking the money there’s nothing that they can do,” Craddock said. “Sometimes we will get a couple of scammers. For some scammers when they figure out that people aren’t going to buy it then they will quit.”
“Stay safe and stay vigilant. I really want to make people aware because I do not want to see them taken advantage of,” he stressed. “Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
