TAMPA, Fla. — Local law enforcement officials say scammers have stolen more than one million dollars from locals, specifically senior citizens.
They said they’re doing this with phone scams like, jury summons, warrant scams, failure to appear scams, fraudulent PayPal and social media scams.
“The fact that they’re mimicking law enforcement is the most alarming part in all of this,” said sheriff Chad Chronister.
That’s exactly how scammers almost got Beverly Boyarsky last Friday.
She got a voicemail from a man claiming to be a Pinellas County deputy calling her to inform her that she did not appear for jury duty. She said the man told her she had to pay nearly $9,800 for bail or she would be arrested.
She said the man knew all her personal information, including address.
“He scared me," she said. “Whoever wrote his script did a good job. I believed it at first.”
The man told her they sent several warnings to her. He even claimed she signed paperwork acknowledging the summons, and mailed it back. She immediately responded, saying she “never signed anything."
“It was all just strange.”
She said he told her she had to go to the Pinellas County Sheriff’s office administration building in Largo to authenticate her signature. He also told her she would have to pay the bail.
“I told him I couldn’t pay that. That was too much,” she said. “He asked how much could I afford?”
She told him she could pay $1,000.
“He goes, 'That’s not acceptable. We can do $2,000. Can you come with $2,000?' I said, 'Sure.'”
This is the point where she realized it was a scam.
“He told me I had to sign paperwork online before I go there, and I had to send the money with Apple Pay,” she said. “I’m like, 'You are a scammer.' Then he said, 'Ma’am, we’ll send somebody right there if you are going to talk to me like that.'”
She hung up the phone. Someone else called her back saying they were just disconnected. That made her more suspicious because it wasn’t the same guy. She called the Pinellas County Sheriff’s officer herself. They told her it was a scam, and they have received dozens of calls about the same thing for weeks.
“The sheriff’s office was really helpful. I explained what had happened, they told me we would never ask for money. We wouldn’t ask you to come down here. We would come to you.”
Multiple Tampa Bay area police departments and sheriff’s offices have seen an uptick in these scams.
"It's imperative that you contact law enforcement because the information you have by being a victim might be that missing piece that we are able to use to go get these individuals,” said Chronister.
Remember, courts always send jury summons by mail. The court and law enforcement never demand payment over the phone, and they will never ask for gift cards or cash.
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