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Sheriff warns citizens against holiday scams

12/09/2011

We are well into the the Holiday season.  A time that we should be enjoying with family and friends.  Unfortunately there are people out there who wish to take advantage of the "deal of the century" or you generosity.  Just this week, our office was contacted by a citizen of the county who stumbled across a deal that was almost too good to be true.

Fortunately this person knew when things began to look like trouble and thus probably saved much of their financial security that could have been lost if they had fallen for a typical scam.  Because of this I wanted to offer up some information that hopefully will prove beneficial. 

We will start with basics, if it is too good to be true, then it probably is.  One of the more commonly used scam is for you to make a purchase or have someone purchase something for you or even from you.  The "other party" or "bad guy" will then send you a check for the purchase price.  Many times they send you a check for double the purchase amount and ask you cash that check, take out an additional fee for your trouble and then send the rest of the money back to them.

DON'T DO IT!  The check they send you is probably a bogus check and by running the check through your account, you now have given them the key to take all of your money from any and all accounts you may have.  This has popped up time and time again.  Much like the relative in distress or Nigerian scams that want you to believe you have a long lost rich distant relative, these are meant to deprive you of your hard earned cash.

Again, the most logical approach to scams is to use common sense.  If your gut tells you its not right then its probably not right.  Again, this happened recently to one of our citizens so it's still out there.  Be careful and don't let one of these crooks ruin your holiday season.