Ada County Sheriff’s Office deputies will never call and threaten to arrest you because you have an outstanding arrest warrant — or civil judgment — or have a tax bill due — or missed jury duty — or anything like that.
Deputies will also never ask you to place funds for payment on a pre-paid credit card to “cancel the arrest warrant,” or to pay a phony civil judgement.
That is all part of a scam that just keeps popping up in the Treasure Valley.
We’ve had numerous reports this week of scam returning yet again to our town. We had two different people come to our office and ask where they could buy the gift cards the need to “quash their warrant.”
The people who call pretend to be ACSO deputies and often use the names of current employees to sell the ruse. The phone numbers usually have a 208 area code.
The latest version is where the scammers ask for money to take care of an “arrest warrant.”
They scammers tell their victims to go to a store, get a pre-paid credit card or gift card, load it up with money, and then call a phone number with the card information.
Once the scammers get that info, the money is gone and there is no way to get it back.
In reality, if one of our deputies had to issue an arrest warrant or file a civil judgment, they would try to find you in person and leave cards with call-back numbers on them several times before calling – and that would be to set up a meet.
They will never ask you to wire or transfer money electronically. That is a sure sign of the scam.
The scammers make the calls over the internet, making them very hard to trace.
The Better Business Bureau is aware of the scam and says people can protect themselves from becoming victims of identify theft by never giving out any personal information when getting an unsolicited phone call.
Giving out sensitive information over the phone — both personal and financial — can put you at risk for fraud.
If you have received one of these scam phone calls, contact the Ada County Sheriff’s Office at (208) 377-6790.
Also, if you didn’t know, all active arrest warrants in Ada County are online and are searchable by name.