State police warn of trendscams

According to Pennsylvania State Police, there are frauds in which callers appear as court officials, state troops or other law enforcement officers.

In the recent fraud frauds, callers tried to collect fines from the victims and told them that they would make a payment possible to avoid arrest for supposed violations such as contempt for the court, not to report on the jury obligation and other civil problems. The callers often encourage the victims to deliver payments in the form of gift cards, whereby money is wired directly to the caller or via a cryptocurrency transaction.

The police warned that fraudsters apply several strategies to convince the victims of their credibility, and warned that families should look particularly for their older relatives, who often target by phone fraudsters.

“Sometimes they provide information such as drawing numbers, names of the actual law enforcement officers and the courthouse,” says the police announcement. “They also meet the government's telephone numbers to appear in Caller -Ids as if they were calling from a government agency or the court.”

Fraudsters will also read home addresses, phone numbers and other personal information connected to the victim to demonstrate their legitimacy. They even provide a fake case or an incident number, a file number or a legal number to give the reported crime authenticity.

“The state police in Pennsylvania would like to remind the public that the state police and/or other government agencies never ask for credit, load or gift card numbers, bank routing numbers or carry out a transfer or cryptocurrency,” says the announcement. “You should never pass on personal or financial information to unknown callers.”

The state police advised against revealing potential fraud calls for personal information. Instead, those who receive fraud calls should put on and contact the local police. The Pennsylvania State Police in Meadville can be reached under (814) 332-6911.