-Information courtesy the Vance County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page

Here is a Friday Fraud Prevention Tip courtesy the Vance County Sheriff’s Office:

No law enforcement agency will ever require, demand, or request payment for anything via prepaid cards of any type. There are a limited number of circumstances where a deputy will accept money, but they are all face-to-face transactions that are accompanied by a civil process. We will never call you and allow you to pay your way out of a warrant with gift cards.

Unfortunately, we have had a repeated scam where someone will contact a target claiming to be Deputy So-and-so, telling the target that there is a warrant for missing Jury Duty or some other sort of reason. The scammer will use forceful language and attempt to coerce the target to go buy prepaid cards and read the numbers off the cards to them over the phone. They keep the target on the phone while they go to the store and purchase the cards. Once they get the numbers from the cards, they distribute the numbers to conspirators who go online and transfer the balance onto other prepaid cards. The funds are then laundered again, making them difficult to track.