The Lake County Sheriff’s Office issued a warning Thursday of a scam involving an offender posing as police officer calling residents.
The sheriff’s office is investigating a series of these offenses in which an unknown caller poses as a police officer calling residents saying there’s an active warrant for their arrest.
According to police, the offender identifies himself as ‘Sergeant Bennett’ and provides the victim their name and address, making the victim feel that the caller is a police officer. The offender then demands the victim purchase gift cards and provide the numbers and pins to those gift cards in order to satisfy the false warrant.
The scammer has also ordered victims to share their social security numbers and banking information, according to police.
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The new cases of this scam are similar to a previous version in which an offender claims to be ‘Sergeant Michael Cope.’ In those cases, the caller ID was manipulated to appear as though the call was coming from inside the Lake County Sheriff’s Office.
Police are urging residents to be suspicious of calls requesting money or gift cards even if a person claims to be from a government agency and ask anyone who’s been a victim to contact local law-enforcement.
