Ada County Sheriff’s Office deputies will never call and threaten to arrest you because you have an outstanding arrest warrant — or missed jury duty — or have a tax bill due — 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 federal tax bill, or some other made-up charge.
The latest target for the scammers appears to be registered sex offenders. Our agency has been contacted by some registered sex offenders who have been called by people posing as Ada County (or Canyon County) deputies who threatened to arrest them because they missed an appointment to get a DNA test.
The scammers tell the people they can make the warrant go away if they go to a store, put some money on a pre-paid credit card, and then call a phone number with the card information.
No appointment was missed. This is a total scam.
We’ve had numerous reports over the last several years of scammers pretending to be ACSO deputies who use phone numbers with a 208 area code to sell the ruse. That is what is happening with this version.
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.