OAKLAND COUNTY — Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard is warning residents that representatives from his office will never ever call or text and ask for an immediate payment of any kind for any reason.
If it happens to you, don’t believe it – ignore it or hang up, Bouchard said.
At least four residents – one as recently as Sunday – were contacted either by phone or text message from a person who identified himself as a “Sergeant Franklin” from the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office and asking for money to get their loved one out of jail. Each of the unsuspecting people really had a loved one who was incarcerated in the Oakland CountyJail, the sheriff’s office said.
“There is no Sergeant Franklin employed in the sheriff’s office but even if there were, he or she would never contact make a phone call or text asking for money in exchange for any service,” Bouchard said. “These scams are frustrating and robbing innocent citizens of their hard-earned money,”
Bouchard added that the sheriff’s office continues to remind anyone that receives a phone call from someone representing themselves as a government entity demanding immediate money that it is a scam.”
In each instance, the phony sergeant tells the unsuspecting person that he can get a loved one of theirs out of jail if they post bond through him using bitcoin and a QR code that he provides and a phone number to call.
Investigators believe scammers are doing their homework by checking the list of jail inmates, which is publicly available information online and then connecting them to a family member through additional research, the sheriff’s office said.
In one instance, the scammer texted the mother of an inmate, saying her son was in jail and claiming he wanted to speak with her about certain conditions her son would have while on bond.
The mother then spoke to the scammer on the phone, who instructed her to withdraw $1,200 from her bank and go to a food mart in Troy. The scammer then gave her detailed instructions over the phone how to send the money using a bitcoin machine, according to the sheriff’s office.
Once the transaction was completed, the scammer stopped responding to her text messages.
She later found out her son was released from jail prior to the transaction.
In another two other instances, the unwitting victims showed up at the county jail with receipts from their transaction with the scammers, believing they had legitimately paid the bond.
They were told by jail deputies the sheriff’s office only takes cash bonds at the jail bonding window.
In all, the four victims paid a total of $6,400 to the scammers, the sheriff’s office said. – J.N.