Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office warns of holiday season scams | VIDEO

ALBANY — With nearly two dozen cases arising in the past week and a half, the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office is warning residents to be on the lookout for certain types of financial scams during the holiday and tax seasons.

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At a news conference Tuesday, Capt. Craig Dodd said the sheriff’s office has run across three different types of scams that are being used against Albany residents.

Dodd said the first scam is called an “IRS (Internal Revenue Service) scam,” which involves people receiving calls from individuals claiming to be from the IRS.

“They’ll tell them the IRS has basically discovered that they owe money from a past year and that they’re going to send the sheriff’s office to arrest them if they don’t give them the money now on a VISA card of Master Card or direct pay from their bank accounts,” said Dodd.

Dodd said the best way to avoid becoming a victim of this scam is to verify any information that is given over the phone by contacting the IRS directly by calling the number listed in the telephone book. Those contacted should not call any number provided by the scam artist.

The second scam investigators are seeing is called a “federal government grant scam.” Victims of this scam receive calls or emails that claim they have been given a grant from the federal government. to get the funds, the potential victims are asked to provide important personal information such as social security number and bank account information.

Dodd added that this scam is often perpetrated along with the IRS scam, which makes it difficult for the potential victim to pass up.

“If the people hang up on them or ignore them or don’t call them back on the IRS scam then they turn right around and come right back with a promise of a federal grant,” said Dodd. “The grant scam comes up and it usually is somewhere in the vicinity of what you owe the fed according to them. Some people will go, ‘you know what I owe the IRS $5,000 so maybe I can get this federal grant that they’re offering.’”

Dodd said one of the things that can help people avoid being victims of this scam is to know that federal agencies do not give away grants or solicit people to apply for grants.

The third type scam the sheriff’s office has seen is one called a “secret shopper” scam where victims are contacted via email or by phone and told that they have been selected as a secret shopper. They are then sent money orders and asked to make purchases at large retailers such as Walmart and Kmart and report their shopping experiences on an electronic questionnaire.

Dodd said all of the victims of this scam have received one or more money orders of $960.40 and are told to spend a fraction of that am0unt and send a portion of the money back to the sender.

“They send you these postal money orders for reimbursement, you cash them in, they tell you just to send them the cash or the green dot card, whatever for the balance of it,” Dodd explained. “you buy this $200 worth of stuff that we send you $1800 for, then you to send back like $1200 and take the rest as your pay.You think you’ve got that money in there because it’s a postal money order.”

To help avoid this scam Dodd said victims should be wary of any group that sends a money order and asks to have a portion of the money sent back to them.

Ultimately Dodd said the sheriff’s office wants anyone who receives these types of calls or communications to disregard them and not give out any information.

“If (anyone) has been a victim, and by that I mean if they have gone to their bank and deposited these things and have lost money, then they need to contact us,” Dodd said. “We can work up something on the ones where they’ve been deposited. If they just called you and you said ‘no,’ what we’re trying to encourage people to do is hang up. Don’t talk to them.”

Dodd said anyone who feels they have been a victim of one of these scams should contact the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Office at either (229) 431-2166 or (229) 431-3259 and ask for an investigator.