Rash of fraud calls reported in Jackson

JACKSON (WNE) — Financial fraudsters are calling valley residents but finding them not so susceptible to their tactics.
 
Earlier this month, residents reported 15 fraud calls, the majority of which took similar approaches. Ten of those calls were reported within 24 hours.
 
Two common threads emerged: that fraudsters were impersonating law enforcement and that Jacksonites weren’t falling for it.
 
In eight of the 15 calls, the fraudsters were pretending to be law enforcement.
 
Teton County Dispatch was notified of the first of these fraud calls at 9:15 a.m. on Feb. 7. A resident stated that someone from the Sheridan Sheriff’s Office had called, asking them for money to smooth over “unresolved citations.”
 
That’s a common scam in which people call and represent themselves as  law enforcement agencies, ultimately spiking their target’s heart rate before asking for money through various means, like gift cards, said Sgt. John Faicco of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office.
 
Distracting someone with stress over warrants or citations and the false urgency needed to make it all go away, the scammer tries to take a victim’s banking information.
 
Law enforcement will never call anybody and request payment over the phone.
 
“If there’s a warrant for your arrest, you’ll need to go to the courthouse or to the Teton County jail to resolve that,” Faicco said.
 
Calls like this were received and reported nine more times on Feb. 7 and Feb. 8 by residents across the valley. In three instances, the fraudster left voicemails claiming to be a sheriff’s deputy, even name-dropping one specific employee of the Teton County Sheriff’s Office who, unbeknownst to the scammer, is now retired.
 
Rather than calling the scammer back, the residents called the real number for the Teton County Sheriff’s Office, where personnel confirmed it was fraud. The Jackson Police Department and Sheriff’s Office said that to their knowledge, no one sent any money.
 
This story was published on February 16, 2024.