Sumter County Sheriff’s Office detectives are warning area residents about the most popular telephone scams going on right now.
The scammers will call you and typically offer some type of service. Frequently, this service is home computer clean-up or debugging assistance. But other variations of the scam involve the scammer pretending to be a loved one that has been jailed or in some cases the scammer pretends to be the attorney for the loved one.
The scams have many different back stories and can come from just about any angle where the person called is left with the feeling of some type of financial obligation.
The tell-tale sign of the scam regardless of the story is that the scammer entices the victim to purchase iTunes gift cards, add money to the card and then provide the 16-digit code from the back of the card. Once the victim buys the cards and gives the scammer the security codes, it’s just like handing them cash.
Right now, the iTunes card scam is one of the preferred methods but it is not the only method of payment for crooks. Scammers have also been using Amazon gift cards or reloadable prepaid debit cards such as MoneyPak, Reloadit or Vanilla.
The Sheriff’s Office has learned of two new cases just this week. Anyone who asks for money through an iTunes or other similar card is trying to scam you. If this happens, just hang up because legitimate businesses will never do this. If you think this is happening to you, hang up and call the sheriff’s office.