Roseville—Police are warning the public to be aware of two recent scams—the “big check” and the “phony warrant” fraudulent schemes—the latter one complete with sound effects.
This past week, a Roseville resident received a call from someone identifying themselves as Lt. Greg Allen of the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. In the background, a radio scanner was heard giving the impression that the call was actually coming from the Sheriff’s Office, when it was not.
The scammer told the Roseville woman that she had failed to appear for jury duty and that a warrant for her arrest had been issued. No such notice had been sent to the woman prior to this call.
The phony Lt. Allen then told her she could pay a fine immediately to rectify the situation by purchasing MoneyPak Green Dot prepaid cash card from a drugstore and reading the numbers to him over the phone. The scam artist also knew details about this woman such as her previous address and names of family members. The woman followed instructions and ended up losing thousands of dollars.
Another Roseville resident—the owner of a dog-sitting service—was the victim of the big check scam. An unsolicited check in a large amount was sent to her requesting her services. She was instructed to deposit the check into her account and to keep a portion for dog-sitting services (that never transpired) and to send the remainder back to the check sender using MoneyPak Green Dot cards.
The check was fraudulent and the scam resulted in this resident losing the money she had spent on the cards.
