Leo Gillick
Scammers are getting smarter by the day, and there is no shortage of vulnerable, gullible people out there for them to prey on. A man in Coweta County believed he was talking to a sheriff, but it was actually a scammer who had him for thousands of dollars.
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The man known as Matthew got a call from someone claiming to be the sheriff. They told him that he had missed a trial and that now he was in deep trouble. Not realizing he was speaking to a scammer and not the sheriff, Matthew was worried.
Threats: The sheriff continued to hassle the 45-year-old man. Matthew revealed that the scammer informed him that unless he pays his bail, it’s straight to jail. “Having never been arrested or incarcerated or anything, I didn’t want to find out at 45 what that’s like,” he told WSB-TV.
Pay Up: So, Matthew paid. The sheriff scammer told him to transfer money with Zelle and Apple Pay. The man sent over a total of $7,000, which was the limit of what his account contained. But the criminals still wouldn’t let him off the hook.
- For over an hour, Matthew spoke to the scammers, and they demanded more. But, during this time, he had been texting his wife, and she smelled a rat.
Sheriff Confirms Scam
Matthew’s wife got on the phone with the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office. They confirmed that there was no way they would ever call someone up like this and demand bail. So, she told him something was off, and he decided to check on their story.
- While on hold to the scammers, he called the Coweta County Sheriff on another line. They confirmed that they would never call asking for money in this way. “There’s no agency that I’m aware of that will call on the phone and tell you that you have a warrant, and if you don’t pay some money, then the warrant will go away,” the office said.
Before Matthew was scared into spending all of his savings, he got off the line. But it wasn’t before he had already sent $7,000 to the sheriff scammer.
