JUNEAU FRAUD ALERT

**** PLEASE SHARE ****

Over the past month, the Juneau Police Department has received a dramatic increase in the number of fraud reports from community members who have fallen victim to online and telephone scams. Scammers have become more sophisticated and convincing, often "Spoofing" phone numbers to make it seem like they are coming from the police department, courts, or other known numbers.  Then pretending to be a legal representative from those organizations.

Many of the recent scam reports involved someone pretending to call from the Juneau Police Department or Anchorage Federal Court system. The callers claimed they were a Juneau Police Officer, and even provided the names of actual officers.  Other times, the caller pretended to be someone from the courts and was routed through the police department.

From there, the scammers begin to claim that the person receiving the call has an arrest warrant due to missing a grand jury hearing, or some other similar activity. Callers may be threatened with going to jail or being detained if they don't pay the fines. The scammers can be very convincing and demanding as they want to try and convince people they are legitimate. They will often tell the victims that there is a "Gag" order in place that prevents the victims from discussing details of the call with anyone, including family members, and even authorities; otherwise, they would get into additional trouble. The scammers may even send victims copies of fraudulent warrants in an attempt to convince them of their legitimacy.

The callers typically want the victims to send them money, often through online transactional services like Zelle, Apple Pay, or PayPal. It is also common for the caller to ask to be paid through Western Union transfers,  gift/money cards, and even Bitcoin. Some of the most recent scams involved the caller telling the victim to purchase Bitcoin through local Coinstar machines.

One twist the scammers may try is to tell the victims to go to the police department after they have provided the money receipts to the scammers and show the numbers to the police department to verify everything is correct. This is done to again try and convince the victim of the legitimacy of the call. But, the scammers know that once they have the money receipts, they can pick up that money from almost anywhere in the world. Often even routing the money through various services to prevent tracing it.

It is a common misconception that these scams only target the elderly. Scammers cast a wide net, and often capture a variety of people that fall victim to these attacks.

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET ONE OF THESE POTENTIAL SCAM CALLS?

• Hang up the phone.
• If you think it could be a legitimate call, tell the caller that you will contact them on their published business line. Then hang up and call them back. DO NOT just use the same number that they called you on. That will just call them back. This is because if it is a spoofed number, it will show up differently on your phone, than what is dialed. Find the public phone number for the organization you want to call and verify it, then manually enter that number into your phone to make the call.

REMINDERS

• The Juneau Police Department will never ask for you to send them money to pay for a warrant.
• No law enforcement authority, court, or similar organization, will try to prevent you from speaking with others about a potential incident. It is your right to speak with others.
• When in doubt, hang up the phone and contact the organization on their published phone number.
• If you are still in doubt, go down to the organization that is calling you, or come to the Juneau Police Department for assistance.
• Paying fines and fees with Bitcoin, and money cards is not a legitimate means of doing business.
• Everything can be faked and made to look legitimate, including websites, emails, and caller IDs.

**** Please share this information to help prevent others from becoming victims. ***

**** If you are responsible for payment kiosk machines, or electronic wiring services, consider putting fraud alert signs nearby to provide information to potential victims.  ****