Yet another phone scam is targeting East Tennesseans.
The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office is warning people not to respond to any request from (865) 484-4012 -- saying that number has been trying to scam people out of money.
According to the JCSO, someone is calling people pretending to be an employee with the sheriff's office -- telling them they missed jury duty. The scammer then tries to coerce and threaten the person out of money by asking for credit card information to pay off fines.
A former Jefferson County judge said the scammers have also been referring people to call a fictional bond company to pay the court costs, saying a friend had been scammed out of roughly $400.
The JCSO said it is investigating the source of the scam.
To protect from being scammed -- never hand out your personal or credit card information over the phone to someone who calls you out of the blue. Another red flag you're being scammed in most cases is if the person asks you to buy some sort of pre-paid gift card to pay off the fines.
Scammers have become increasingly savvy and can spoof numbers and caller ID information to impersonate officials, like the JCSO, IRS, KUB and others.
Here are tips to prevent being scammed from the FCC:
- Don't answer calls from unknown numbers. If you answer such a call, hang up immediately.
- If you answer the phone and the caller - or a recording - asks you to hit a button to stop getting the calls, you should just hang up. Scammers often use this trick to identify potential targets.
- Do not respond to any questions, especially those that can be answered with "Yes" or "No."
- Never give out personal information such as account numbers, Social Security numbers, mother's maiden names, passwords or other identifying information in response to unexpected calls or if you are at all suspicious.
- If you get an inquiry from someone who says they represent a company or a government agency, hang up and call the phone number on your account statement, in the phone book, or on the company's or government agency's website to verify the authenticity of the request. You will usually get a written statement in the mail before you get a phone call from a legitimate source, particularly if the caller is asking for a payment.
- Use caution if you are being pressured for information immediately.
- If you have a voice mail account with your phone service, be sure to set a password for it. Some voicemail services are preset to allow access if you call in from your own phone number. A hacker could spoof your home phone number and gain access to your voice mail if you do not set a password.
- Talk to your phone company about call blocking tools and check into apps that you can download to your mobile device. The FCC allows phone companies to block robocalls by default based on reasonable analytics. More information about robocall blocking is available at fcc.gov/robocalls.