TYLER, Texas — East Texas residents are being cautioned to watch out for a recent scam involving people impersonating officers who represent Smith County Sheriff's Office to demand money for fake legal matters.
Sgt. Larry Christian, spokesperson for the Smith County Sheriff's Office, explains the scam begins with the caller falsely claiming to be associated with the sheriff's office.
"Lately, it's been two of our employees by the name of Sgt. Tim Jones and Sgt. Justin Hall, who both work for us. But people are just using their names when they make these phone calls to try to solicit money from those," Christian said.
The scammers often say they are from the Civil Processing Division, which handles civil papers but does not collect money from people.
"They have technology out there now where someone can be calling from, you know, Jamaica or New York or wherever they're coming from. And they can attach a 903 area code to what looks like a legitimate number," Christian said.
If you receive such a call and suspect it's a scam, Christian advises hanging up and contacting the law enforcement agency the caller claims to represent to verify the authenticity of the call.
"Any time someone gets a phone call in, they claim it's a law enforcement agency or they claim it's any governmental organization and they're asking you for money over the telephone. You always consider it a scam," Christian said.
Christian assured that the sheriff's office is actively investigating these fraudulent calls and is hopeful future technology can prevent these scams from happening altogether.