SHERIFF ISSUES WARNING

Steven Towns, Sher­iff of Williams County, says again and again the Williams County Sheriff’s Office receives calls report­ing that some­one has either been a vic­tim of, or has been tar­geted by, scam­mers.

The Sher­iff says scams come in all forms and use many dif­fer­ent meth­ods to con­tact you.

If you have to pay to col­lect your prize it is a scam. If you receive a call to send money to a rel­a­tive need­ing funds by wire or money order you should call other rel­a­tives to ver­ify that the per­son claim­ing to need funds is who and where they say they are.

Also, the Sher­iff reminds every­one that law enforce­ment agen­cies do not send you a notice via email of your impend­ing arrest if you do not pay a fine.

If you are con­tacted to post bond for a rel­a­tive or friend first con­tact the law enforce­ment agency or court that is pur­ported to be hold­ing your rel­a­tive or friend. Do not offer to post the bond money over the tele­phone

or online.

Unless you ini­ti­ated the call do not offer your credit card infor­ma­tion to any­one on the tele­phone. Do not pay for unso­licited work that may be claimed to have been per­formed on your home or prop­erty. Be cau­tious of notices you receive online claim­ing that your com­puter needs imme­di­ate repair.

Many scams involve the use of a trusted ship­ping com­pany name such as FedEx, UPS or USPS. You may receive an email from a ship­per telling you that you have an unde­liv­ered pack­age. Con­tact the ship­ping com­pany by tele­phone. Do not answer the email and do not send funds to obtain the pack­age until you

have checked with the ship­per directly. Do not give out the track­ing num­ber for a pack­age or let­ter to any­one other than a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a trusted deliv­ery service.