JACKSON – Police reported that a Jackson resident recently fell prey to a telephone scam and they cautioned residents to be aware of such flim-flams.
Lt. Steven Laskiewicz said the man, whose name was not released by police, reported the scheme after he signed up for an online dating service.
The man told police that soon after he signed up, he began receiving text messages from an individual claiming to be a woman.
Laskiewicz said the person sending the text messages eventually claimed to be a 16-year-old girl. At that point, the man told police, he ended communications with the individual.
Several days later he was contacted by a man claiming to be a detective with a sheriff’s department in South Carolina.
The man told police he was informed by the “detective” that the girl’s parents were seeking to press charges against him for engaging in allegedly inappropriate conversations with their daughter.
The “detective” gave the Jackson resident the phone number of a person who was said to be the girl’s father. The father claimed the girl had become so despondent after the conversations that she overdosed on medication.
The “father” told the Jackson man he was considering pressing charges for endangering the welfare of his child. The only way for the “father” to agree not to press charges was for the man to wire half of the family’s costs to send the girl to a rehab facility, about $1,000, through a Walmart Moneygram account.
According to the resident’s account provided to police, it was only after following through with the man’s demand for money that he realized he had been duped.
Over the last year, a number of reports from the Jackson Police Department and nearby municipalities have described incidents in which residents have lost thousands of dollars to different types of fraud.
In one case, a Jackson man lost more than $4,200 after he was warned by a caller that he had to pay the money in order to avoid being arrested for an existing warrant, court fees and attorney fees. In that instance, police said the man was instructed to send payment through the use of PayPal Green Dot MoneyPak cards.
Recently, some residents have reported receiving calls from a phone number with a 720 area code from Colorado seeking donations for a police foundation.
Officials said the calls were not affiliated with the Jackson Police Department or Jackson PBA Local 168. They said neither organization solicits donations by telephone.
Laskiewicz said residents must be increasingly skeptical of unsolicited telephone calls that end with a request to wire money through similar methods.
“It is advised not to send anonymous callers funds through any kind of money card without verifying information,” the lieutenant said.