'Tis the season for scams

LAKELAND  — When Molly Madrid answered her phone, she was told she qualified for a "special promotion."

The caller on Nov. 30 claimed to be with Direct TV and told the Lakeland resident she could receive the company's premier package offered through Direct TV, AT&T and Amazon.

All she had to do was pay $300 with Amazon gift cards, which would cover her first five payments, and after that her monthly payment would be $59. 

The caller told her to purchase the gift cards and then call a 1-888 number and giving the person who answers a promotion code and the numbers on the back of her gift cards. 

Madrid, 58, did just that. 

And she was scammed out of $300, the Polk County Sheriff's Office said. 

She isn't the only one to be a victim. 

Anthony Ringer commented on the Sheriff's Office Facebook post about the scam, admitting he received the same call. 

"I was a victim of the Direct TV scam to the tune of $575," he said. "It was money I couldn't afford to lose."

The Sheriff's Office deals with reports of between 10 to 30 successful scams a month, said Scott Wilder, Sheriff's Office spokesman. Many of the victims are senior citizens.

The agency arrested 101 people last year on charges related to false pretenses and swindling.

In 2015, 20,306 Floridians reported similar crimes to the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center with losses totaling more than  $94.5 million.

Nationally, scams cost Americans nearly $1.1 billion, according to the Internet Crime Report. 

"If it sounds too good to be true, it's not true," Wilder said about the scams.

Wilder said the agency has no crime category or code for scams alone, so he could not provide a number for how many have been reported so far in 2016. 

The Internet Crime Report, however, shows the number of people being scammed is increasing. 

"It has always been and continues to be a problem," said Sgt. Gary Gross of the Lakeland Police Department. 

Gross said LPD handles a number of fraud complaints, many of which are difficult to investigate. 

"Many of the calls are made from out of state or out of the country," he said, adding the numbers are "spoofed" or changed.

In 2014, the Internet Crime Report received 269,422 complaints and that number increased by about 7 percent to 288,012 complaints in 2015. The Internet Crime Report does not have numbers for 2016. 

Wilder said businesses typically do not cold-call customers the way the caller who claimed he was with Direct TV did. 

"When you might get a phone solicitation is when you are already a customer," he said. "Even then, we recommend that you do not do business at all when someone calls unsolicited."

AT&T-Direct TV does not solicit its customers for prepayments, said Karen McAllister, PR manager for AT&T in Lakeland and west Florida. 

McAllister said if a customer thinks a call is a scam they should hang up and call back using the number on their AT&T Direct TV bill. 

"We monitor our network for potential fraud activity and provide information about fraud scams on our website," she said. 

For more information, customers or people who feel they have fallen victim to this scam can go to https://www.att.com/att/fraud/en/index.html.

Sheriff's Office detectives say the best thing to do when a "business" calls with an offer is to simply hang up.

"There is a near 100 percent chance that the caller is trying to scam you," Wilder said. 

The "TV subscription scam" is not the only one out there for which Polk County residents are falling. 

There is the "grandparent scam," the Publisher Clearinghouse scam, the dating website scam, a variety of IRS scams and false warrant and jury duty scams. 

Wilder said these scams are relatively common, especially around the holidays. 

People are used to spending money during the holiday season and are not as suspicious of "special offers."

The "festive or giving mood" many people are in can cloud their instincts and lead them into being scammed, said Lt. Jay Hopwood of the Haines City Police Department. 

"The number of attempted scams reported is very high," Wilder said, saying the agency gets calls from people every day saying they received a call that seemed like a scam.

"That's happening every single day," Wilder said.

Detectives said the Direct TV scam appeared credible and convincing, which is why people should always just hang up and say no. 

Scammers are not only using phones to steal from their victims, said Jamie Brown of the Winter Haven Police Department.

The amount of online scams reported to the department "seem endless," she said. 

"There are so many offers online," Brown said. "There is a lot of danger in going to obscure websites that appear normal."

Brown said victims could be throwing their money at a website that is not even real. 

"Never use open Wi-Fi anywhere to do online shopping," she offered as a piece of advice. 

Hopwood said lottery ticket scams are also popping up around the holidays, where scammers target senior citizens and immigrants. 

There are several different types of lottery ticket scams, but Hopwood said most of them end up with the victim being talked into taking the suspects to their bank, withdrawing money and giving it to the scammers. 

The scammers leave with the victim's money and the victim is left with a "winning lottery ticket" that is worthless.

Brown said she knows scams of all types are a problem, especially around the holidays, because she could have been a victim herself. 

She and her husband were looking for campers on Craigslist and found two they were interested in. Brown emailed both owners and got back almost verbatim responses. 

The only difference in the responses was the locations of the campers and names of the owners. 

"I knew it smelled fishy so I left it alone," she said. 

Phone scams are also nothing new for WHPD. 

Scammers call people claiming to be from a computer company like Microsoft, telling victims their computers have a virus. 

"We have dealt with all kinds of scams, like the grandparent scam," she said. "That continues over and over."

In the "grandparent scam," a caller tells a victim that a grandchild is in jail and needs bail money, Wilder said. 

The caller will say the easiest way to get the cash is through a gift card of some kind. In a case reported to the Sheriff's Office, the caller requested Target gift cards. 

In the Publisher's Clearinghouse scam, the caller tells victims they have won an amount of money but have to pay taxes and fees before receiving their check. 

The victim is instructed to wire money out of the country but the check the victim receives is bogus. 

Wilder said once the victim's money is gone there is no way to get it back. 

"Often the transactions are not traceable, and when they are, they are out of the country and there's zero chance of getting the money back," he said. 

The dating website scam involves a scammer making contact with the victim through a dating website and then building an online relationship. 

Eventually they will say some kind of emergency has happened and will ask for money through gift cards or money cards. 

The more threatening scams are the IRS, false warrant and jury duty scams. 

Scammers will demand money, telling the victim they owe money and will go to jail if they don't pay it.

In truth, those agencies never contact people over the phone. 

Hopwood said citizens need to know to never provide checking account or routing numbers, Social Security number or credit card numbers to a caller. 

"Do not allow yourself to be rushed or pressured into making a quick, unwise decision," he said. 

Gross agreed, saying if it is a high-pressure call where the person is saying, "you need to make a decision now," it's best to just hang up. 

"Nine times out of 10 it's a scam," he said. 

Because fraud suspects attempt to prey on senior citizens, Hopwood said, family members need to warn them about the calls and discuss how they should handle them.

"Be very suspicious of anyone contacting you with anything that requires you to pay money," Wilder said. "It's best to just say no."

— Tori Walker can be reached at tori.walker@theledger.com or 863-802-7590. Follow Tori on Twitter @Torilwalker863. 

Local law enforcement officials warn against several types of scams, including: 

• Grandparent scam: Caller tells the victim a grandchild is in jail and needs bail money. The scammer will say the easiest way to get the cash is through a gift card of some kind. 
• Internal Revenue Service scam: Caller claims to be with the IRS and threatens to arrest the person unless the victim sends money. The IRS will never call or email anyone. It will not demand payment nor ask for a credit or debit card number. If this happens, call the IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting number at 800-366-4484.
• The city scam: A scammer will claim to be with the city and demands money from the victim for a electric or utility bill. Sgt. Gary Gross with the Lakeland Police Department said the city will never call; an official will come out to your house or send mail. 
• False warrant/jury duty scam: Scammer tells the victim to send money for a warrant the victim doesn't have or tells the victim that because they didn't show up for jury duty they need to send money for a fine or a warrant will be issued. 

If you have been scammed or think someone attempted to scam you, call your local law enforcement office. 

SCAMS