On Wednesday afternoon, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office was contacted by a scam victim who reported receiving a call from a male suspect identifying himself as “Lt. Dave Williams” from the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office. He told her she had a warrant for failing to appear regarding jury duty and was able to confirm the victim’s correct social security number, date of birth and home address. The victim also noted the suspect had called her cell phone.
The quality of the information provided by the suspect made the exchange more believable to the victim thus heightening concern she was in trouble.
The suspect provided a bogus court case number, his contact phone number with a 928 area code, and instructed the victim to appear in person at the Cottonwood Municipal Court at 6:30PM. Of course, the court would have been closed. Suspicious about the call, she told the suspect she would be calling the Sheriff’s Office directly to verify and he hung up. Detectives believe, based on similar past reports, that the suspect would expect a follow-up call from the victim after finding the court closed and then direct her to pay a fine via green dot/gift card/money order to quash the warrant.
Detectives called the suspect’s number and received a voice mail message which was recorded. Detectives are investigating the source of this number.
These scammers often are able to obtain complete personnel data on individuals from hackers who routinely sell such information via underground websites. If in doubt, verify any claim by contacting the court/sheriff’s office/police department using published phone numbers. Also note that scam suspects also have the ability to spoof phone numbers which will appear on caller ID screens as authentic to the government agency. This can make any initial scam call seem genuine.