Full Notification

Two popular telephone scams have been on the increase lately. Local Law Enforcement has received complaints about telephone scams asking for money or personal information as detailed below. Though they sound very convincing please do not fall for these scams.

In one such case a Cameron Township resident reported that he has received numerous calls from a company identifying itself as VSUW Discount located in Philadelphia, PA. The calls came from telephone number 215-383-9735. The caller told the complainant that his telephone number had been picked randomly and that he had won a $100 WalMart gift card. The caller then requests a credit card number for shipping and handling in order to pay for having the gift card sent out. The investigation into this scam is continuing and the Law Enforcement recommends using extreme caution any time someone requests your personal information or credit card information over the phone or internet.

Another popular scam was used when Sandra Keller answered her phone Wednesday morning and she heard what sounded like the voice of a distraught young man.

"He was crying; he was hysterical and hollering 'grandma, grandma,'" said Keller, 66, Auburndale.

The person on the other end of the phone was crying so hard, Keller couldn't tell whether it was the voice of her 15-year-old grandson. He said he was in jail. "I said, 'Ben, you've got to quit crying,' because I couldn't understand what he was saying," Keller said.

A man claiming he was a police officer from Winston, Canada, took the phone and told Keller her grandson was in a car that was stopped during a drug bust. The "officer" said Keller's grandson didn't have drugs in his system, and authorities wanted to release him, but they needed her to wire money. He ordered her not to tell anyone, including the boy's mother, and to send the money to Madrid, Spain.

"It upset me so bad thinking it was my grandson on the phone," Keller said, but she realized the request to wire money to Spain was suspicious. She called her daughter, who told Keller the 15-year-old was in school.

In the past two years, at least three Wood County residents have fallen victim to the same type of phone scam, Wood County Sheriff's Department Investigator-Sgt. Dean Berres said. A variation is that the grandson has been in a crash in Canada. The scammers got a total of about $15,000 from the three victims. "These people talk so fast and furious and make it sound so legitimate," Berres said.

Keller thinks the person who called her discovered her grandson's name because she used it early in the phone call. However, many people question how callers get personal information about loved ones, Berres said.

People can easily find a lot of personal information by going to websites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, Berres said. Children will post full names, schools and addresses. "Then, all the scammers have to do is some simple Google searches for that area, try to find phone numbers and take a shot in the dark at getting the right person," Berres said. Even photographs people post on the Internet can give out unintended information, Berres said. Photos people take from cell phones have embedded codes that contain GPS coordinates of where the person took the photograph. People can use an inexpensive program to read the codes. When getting emergency phone calls from someone claiming to be a family member, people should take a mental step back and listen to what the person is saying, Berres said. If the caller doesn't want anyone else told about the situation, gives a short deadline, insists on getting cash or wants money sent to somewhere outside the country or other than where the caller is located, it's a good indication it's a scam, Berres said.

Please pass this along to friends and loved ones so they don't fall victim to these scammers.