”Jail Bail” Phone Scam Reported In Wyoming
A phone scam that features false phone numbers on caller ID to fool the victim is being reported in Wyoming.
Sweetwater County Sheriff Mike Lowell says the "jail bail" scam features a caller pretending to be a relative or close friend calling the intended victim and claiming to have been arrested, usually on drunk driving charges.
The caller claims to need bail money in order to be released from the Sweetwater County Detention Center (or other jail if the scam, is conducted in a different county).
The sheriff says the caller is able to use--or spoof--the jail's actual phone number to make the scam more believable. The intended victim is told to call an attorney at a certain phone number to arrange to pay bail.
The phony attorney then tells the victim to send the bail money--usually thousands of dollars--via a reloadable debit card. The number for the bogus attorney has a "375" area code, which is for Belarus, a country that is part of the former Soviet Union.
The sheriff says anyone who sends the money has virtually no chance of getting it back. Lowell says anyone who receives such a call can always call the jail and find out whether the person is actually an inmate.
The jail will also be able to tell people about how to legitimately post bail.