I was called at 1:20pm Friday by a man posing as an attorney for my son, who had been arrested Tuesday.
He said a judge referred him to my son’s case because he was innocent of the charge and needed to be a federal witness and out on an ankle monitor until he appears as a witness to a federal crime.
I would not have believed him but he had my son on the phone and even had the jailors move him to PC and had me go to Western Union and send him money for the ankle monitor.
When I hesitated, he told me he had people there waiting to file paperwork and I sent it.
Then he told me I needed to send 350 more for the bond fee. It sounded suspicious, so I went to the court house and spoke to a deputy who even spoke directly to the scammer, who told the deputy to have me calm down, understand he needed the bond and was on his way to sign paperwork.
The deputy didn’t advise me to send money but I asked if this was a real deal happening. He said he could not confirm it was or wasn’t I sent it against my better judgement and it was a scam - I won’t be able to recover my money but can report this is happening so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
The deputy mentioned a woman came in after me and had a card to send money. He was able to stop her from sending the scammer money, but my son said another mother or an inmate there has been scammed the same week.
This is local and someone is preying on recent arrests and getting the families personal case information and phone numbers and able to call on attorney privileged calls with the inmates.
It is a specific and aggressive scam right here in Lincoln County and I hope we can save another family from losing their money in an already difficult time for them.
Lori McDaniel, Chandler