MAPIROSA COUNTY – The Mariposa County Sheriff’s Office is alerting mountain communities that telephone fraud/scams are continuing to occur and numerous local residents have received fraudulent telephone calls attempting to scam money.
These fraud calls encompass many scams but a few of the more prevalent ones include:
The Canadian Lottery scam – The caller advises that you’ve won the lottery. However, in order to collect you need to send a money order in various amounts to the “Lottery Commission to cover the taxes.” The reality is that the caller has never entered the Canadian Lottery and once they send the money order they never receive their “winnings.”
Grandson Jailed scam – The caller attempts to fool the resident that their grandson has been arrested and jailed, sometimes in a foreign country, and attempts to scam the resident to “pay bail” for the grandson via a money order.
Bank Account scam – This consists of the scammer contacting the resident and attempting to convince them to give the caller their confidential personal and banking information to correct a problem with the credit line or bank account.
The Sheriff’s Office highly recommends that residents do not provide any personal or banking information over the telephone. Credentialed businesses do not employ these tactics. If in doubt, do not provide any information.
