Sheriff’s Office warns residents to beware of scams, offers safety tips

By Jim Newell
Managing Editor
jnewell@mihomepaper.com
ORION TWP. — Two Orion Township residents were recently swindled out of a total of $49,400 in separate incidents after being convinced to send money through bitcoin.
Now, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office in Orion Township wants to remind citizens to beware of scams and never send money through bitcoin.
In the first incident, on Sept. 19, a 70-year-old woman reported to the sheriff’s office that she was swindled out of $8,400 after receiving an email saying she had an error in her PayPal account. The woman did not have a PayPal account, and called a phone number provided to fix the issue.
The woman was put in touch with someone she was told was a government agent, who convinced her that her social security number was hacked and to send money through bitcoin. The woman withdrew the $8,400 from two bank accounts and deposited it into a bitcoin machine.
Lt. Darren Ofiara is commander of the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office Orion Township Substation and spent five years in the Cyber Crimes Unit (CCU).
“If anybody asks you to pay in bitcoin, Apple Pay or prepaid cards it is a scam. I want to make sure citizens know that,” Ofiara said. “If anyone asks for you to pay that way, do not pay it. Let us know and we’ll go from there. No good, legitimate business is going to make you pay that way.”
In another incident in September, an 81-year-old woman was swindled out of $41,000.
When deputies arrived at the woman’s residence, she told deputies a pop-up warning that a virus protection software would end appeared on her computer. The woman called the phone number on the pop-up and was told it would cost $210 to fix.
“If you get scammed, the first thing to do is contact the companies and let them know and lock your accounts. Contact us to let us know. Document anything that’s occurred, any phone numbers or websites that you were on, copy and paste it so you have it for future use so we can investigate,” Ofiara said.
According to the report, the person on the other line told the woman they accidentally put too many zeros in her total, and to send $21,000 through bitcoin to fix the problem. The woman was told she would be reimbursed, and sent the funds.
The suspects then told the woman that the transaction did not go through, and to send another $21,000, which she did, according to a sheriff’s office report.
Both incidents are under investigation. The report did not say if the two incidents were connected. There are no suspects at this time.
Ofiara offers some tips on what to look out for to avoid being scammed:
• Verify who’s contacting you: if a legitimate company (such as your financial institution, cable or utilities provider) contacts you, you can call them back. If you did not initiate the call, email or text it’s okay to be suspicious. Any legitimate company will give you time to verify their contact information and then call them.
• If someone contacts you and demands payment right then – especially demanding payment in bitcoin or prepaid gift cards – it’s a scam.
• Don’t use the same password for more than one account. “If someone hacks your computer and you’re using the same password for everything they will check your internet history, they will check the sites you’ve visited and if they put a tracker on your computer they will then hit all of your accounts and it becomes a cascade event,” Ofiara said. “If criminals do get access to your account, they can lock you out, hold it for ransom or take all of your money.”
Text Message Scams
Ofiara said his phone gets hit all the time with text messages – retail stores, PayPal and others – where he does not even have an account.
“Messages from John from Walmart saying ‘Your order has been delayed’, or a myriad of things. If you get an unsolicited text asking you to click on a link, do not click on it. They’re just randomly pushing. If you get an unsolicited text, delete it. If you do order something, you can contact that company from a different route to make sure it’s true,” Ofiara said.