News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Crossville Police Department wants local businesses to help reduce the number of reported scams.
Crossville Police Captain Brian Eckelson said The No Scam Zone Initiative aims to stop scams by training employees.
“It is imperative that we do this. There is no other way to get the information to each individual possible victim in the entire county,” Eckelson said. “So doing it one-on-one would take forever. But if we can get to the points of purchase we can get the businesses that sell the gift cards, maybe we can help cut this down.”
The No Scam Zone Initiative focuses on informing businesses and banks on identifying possible victims.
The Crossville Police Department will offer free scam training with the Cumberland Crime Stoppers.
“The training basically is to the businesses themselves, the actual teller and the cashiers at the registers,” Eckelson said. “If somebody comes in that is purchasing a large amount of gift cards, you don’t want to violate their privacy obviously, but just ask them a simple question. ‘Do you personally know the person you are buying this gift for?'”
Eckelson said the No Scam Zone Initiative comes from the high rate of scams nationwide.
“Imposter scams are one of the biggest. And that’s what usually when we get reports of scams, the imposter scam is what we are seeing more often than not. An imposter scam is simply somebody pretending to be somebody they are not,” Eckelson said. “Either they pretend to be from the IRS, a family member, somebody from their church, a government official. They are not who they say they are, don’t send them any money.”
Scams can come from emails, calls, and text messages. Eckelson said most scams start by telephone calls.
“Auto-generated telephone calls go out if somebody answers the phone they actually get connected with a live scammer on the other end and they will start their scam,” Eckelson said. “‘Hey, I’m with the IRS. We have warrants for your arrest. we are going to come and get you if you don’t send us iTunes cards.’ And everybody should know that the IRS doesn’t accept iTunes cards or Google Play Cards.”
Eckelson said the scammers will convince victims to send large amounts of gift cards or cashiers checks.
“They will send the victims out to stores and tell them exactly what denominations to get, what stores to go to,” Eckelson said. “Stay on the phone with them the entire time while they are driving there so they don’t change their mind halfway through and let them think freely for a second before they go spend their money.”
Eckelson said in 2017, scam victims lost approximately $905 million in total.
“Basically they are fishing. All these phone calls and emails that go out. If one-tenth of one percent respond, they have hit the jackpot. It only takes a few. Here in Cumberland County, I’ve got four or five examples that total over $100,000 people have been scammed out of. ”
The No Scam Zone training is free to all businesses. To schedule a free training session, call the Crossville Police Department.
