Woman scammed out of nearly $30K by caller pretending to be with Allegheny County Sheriff's Office
MUNHALL, Pa. (KDKA) -- A woman was scammed out of nearly $30,000 by someone who called and pretended to be from the Allegheny County Sheriff's Office, officials said.
According to the sheriff's office, the victim was called last Monday by someone who identified themselves as Commander Leo O'Neill, who oversees the courts division, and told her she had active arrest warrants for failure to appear and contempt of court. The sheriff's office said the caller ID made it look like the call was actually coming from them.
The scammer told the victim to take money out of the bank and go to two different Coinstar machines to convert the cash into cryptocurrency. The victim converted just over $28,000, the sheriff's office said. There was no information on the receipts to indicate where the cryptocurrency was being sent.
The sheriff's office is reminding residents that it will never discuss warrant information over the phone, nor request payment. That means they'll never ask you to use electronic transfers, payment apps like Venmo and Zelle, cryptocurrency or payment kiosks.
"We empathize with the fact that being told over the phone that you risk being arrested is upsetting and stressful, but it is exactly that feeling of stress that the scammers are using to convince victims to do something that would never take place with legitimate law enforcement procedures," the sheriff's office said in a news release.
In the first nine months of 2023, LendingTree found that Pennsylvania residents lost more than $158 million to scams, a nearly 22% increase compared to the previous year.
The FBI said Tuesday that Americans 60 and older fell victim to elder fraud crimes more frequently last year than any other and accounted for an estimated $3.4 billion in total reported losses.
How to protect yourself from scams
The FTC offers tips online for recognizing scams and protecting yourself from fraudsters.
A red flag is when a scammer, pretending to be from a recognizable organization, insists on a specific payment like using cryptocurrency, sending money on a payment app or buying gift cards. Scammers will also try to pressure you to act immediately before you have time to think, the FTC says.
To avoid scams, the FTC says you shouldn't give your personal or financial information in response to a request that you didn't expect. "Honest organizations won't call, email, or text to ask for your personal information, like your Social Security, bank account, or credit card numbers," the FTC writes on its website.
If you think you were the victim of a scam, you can report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
