• UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Purely out of curiosity, I checked to see if the Fort Wayne Police Department was real or a parody account. (Probably should have been tipped off by @FWPD_unreal, but I’m a dummy).

    Found this instead.

    A person, claiming to be a Fort Wayne Police Officer, using a bogus badge number has been calling unsuspecting citizens from 260-281-8450. This person, claiming to be an officer, states that a judge (uses a real judges names) has ordered Bench Warrants for the unsuspecting citizen for Failure to Appear in Federal court and Avoidance of Civic Duty (Jury Duty). When the fake officer is questioned, he hangs up and spoofs the Fort Wayne Police Department’s non-emergency number 260-427-1222 so it appears they are calling back from the FWPD.

    The scammer then requests money to pay for the bond of the Bench Warrants. The Phony officer sounds believable and stresses that the money is needed right away! The scammer offers multiple avenues of payment to take care of the bond.

    Gotta wonder how someone with this intimate knowledge of the FWPD is able to execute the same without the department’s interference.

    • Taldan@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I don’t know that knowing the public non-emergency number counts as “intimate knowledge”. It’s a pretty common scam used all around the US, to the tune of billions of dollars a year. More commonly it’s impersonating the IRS, but same process