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, or tell you to come to our office so you can make a payment at a “kiosk.”
That is all part of a scam that just keeps popping up in the Treasure Valley.
We’ve had numerous reports this week of scammers pretending to be ACSO deputies – one of the names they’ve used is “Sgt. Pat Calley,” who retired in 2019 — who use phone numbers with a 208 area code to sell the ruse. (The calls also have used the names of former Sheriff Steve Bartlett and deputies “Dixon” or “Mixon,” who don’t exist.)
The latest version is where the scammers ask for money to take care of an “arrest warrant.”
They usually tell their victims to go to a store, get a pre-paid credit card (like a Green Dot), load it up with money, and then call a phone number with the card information.
A wrinkle they also use is telling people to come to our office to pay at a kiosk. When people get here and find no kiosk, they call the number back and the scammers direct them to a store to put money on a credit card.
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.