NEENAH, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Police departments in Winnebago County are reporting an increase in scam calls directed at older people.
Victims are being asked to give bail money for family members, who they were told were arrested.
“In recent months, we have had in-person scams where it started as a phone scam, but then someone would come to the person’s residence to collect cash, for example, to allegedly let a relative out of jail,” Neenah Police Department Community Policing Officer Joe Benoit said.
Benoit has noticed an uptick in these calls. He said they’ve been around for years, but sometimes there are peak periods.
Neenah officers were dispatched for fraud complaints 32 times in June, 18 times in July and 10 times in the first two weeks of August.
“These things happen much more often than they are reported, and it’s often times difficult to follow up on,” Benoit said.
He said the reason older generations are more at risk is because of new technology.
“My generation, my parents generation and older — we want to help people, but when I grew up, I don’t remember there being scams other than you know — you watch your wallet,” Benoit said.
Some scammers do their homework to be more convincing.
“They look up, using online resources and public source data. They’ll look at family members, names, locations, and they’ll get some basic information about an individual,” Benoit said.
He said this is done to instill a sense of fear.
” [The scammers] use that to try to exploit them, make them feel bad and guilt them into giving them money,” he said.
Police say the best thing for people to do is to always assume the person on the other end is not who they say they are.
“If you’re talking on the phone and don’t know who you’re talking to, verify what department they’re with, what company they’re with,” Benoit said. “If they claim to be law enforcement, ask the name of their police chief.”
Other tips for those who are skeptical of a caller are never give out personal information and know that police will never send someone to collect bail money.
A specific incident in Oshkosh resulted in a woman losing thousands of dollars after a scammer told the victim that her granddaughter was in jail and needed bail.
