Phone scammers posing as kidnappers or assassins in recent schemes, El Dorado Sheriff says
El Dorado County Sheriff’s officials are warning the public about a pair of phone scams reported this week in which the scammer poses as a kidnapper or a hired assassin in an effort to extort money.
Authorities say one of the dramatic schemes targeted a couple in a relationship, who received simultaneous calls informing them that their child had been kidnapped and demanding ransom payment, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday in a Facebook post.
“The twist on this was that each suspect caller was using information provided by one parent, to use towards the other one,” the sheriff’s post said. “This made it seem all the more real as the suspects were able to relay real life information.”
In the other scam, the Sheriff’s Office says at least two residents reported receiving text messages in which the scammer called the victims by their names and told them they had been hired to “kill/assassinate them.”
“After going into detail about this, the text says that the person can pay fees to ‘spare their lives,’ “ sheriff’s officials said.
The residents who reported this scam message received identical texts from the same phone number, the Sheriff’s Office said.
The post did not say whether the two scams are believed to be linked.
Deputies reminded citizens to never send money to strangers, and urged anyone who receives a scamming phone call to contact the local authorities, the Federal Trade Commission or the Internal Revenue Service, depending on the nature of the call.
If you believe someone has actually been kidnapped or hired to assassinate you, you should call 911 immediately.
