LINTON POLICE

 

 

Linton police educate public on Internet, other scams

By Nick Schneider, ASSIGNMENTS EDITOR

A simple message was stressed at a public seminar conducted Tuesday night by the Linton Police Department that dealt with identity theft, Internet crimes, fraud and check scams.

“If it's too good to be true, it probably is,” said Lt. Troy Jerrell, who served as moderator for the educational session.

A crowd of about a dozen residents took advantage of the free event.

“It went real well. Everyone said it was real informative,” Jerrell said. “I feel like it (the meeting) was real successful and we'll probably end up doing it again.”

Jerrell said he and Linton Mayor Tom Jones both felt the seminar was worthwhile and the police department will conduct another one sometime in August.

The veteran police officer said Internet check and fraud scams are very commonplace and his department frequently receives complaints from residents who have either fallen prey to one of the schemes or they are suspicious about an offer they have received through an e-mail message.

“We get complaints and people call me probably once a week with some kind of a scam,” Jerrell stated.

He said enforcement of these kinds of crimes are difficult because most are based outside the United States in Canada, Australia, Nigeria and Russia.

“Our best recourse is to educate the public and try to stop them before they get scammed. Once they lose money to Australia or something, it's going to be real tough to get it (the money) back,” Jerrell said.

Jerrell pointed out that residents should be leery anytime anyone asks for your bank account or social security numbers in an e-mail offer or when informed of winning a lottery drawing.

The police officer said a popular scam now frequently seen in e-mails is what is called an “overpay scam.” They are issued a bogus check for lottery or other similar winnings. The amount of the check is then said to be too much and the local resident is asked to send back the extra money. When the original bogus check bounces, the resident ends up being responsible for the entire loss.

He said the criminals are playing a “numbers” game - hoping even a small percentage of people will respond.

“If you send out 10,000 of these letters and you get back only 50 or 100, you can make some pretty good money. Believe it or not, many of these are coming from Russia,” Jerrell noted. “It's a bad problem and there are a lot of people getting away with it.

“All of the scams basically follow one or two guidelines. They are either sending you a check and you have to send them some money back. Or, you send them your checking account information so they can allegedly send you the money. Once you never receive the money, of course, you find out they were wanting your personal information so they can write checks on your account.”