Scams

Stories about municipal water treatment plants being hacked by foreign agents has been making headlines recently in Minnesota and other states.  Meeker County Sheriff Brian Cruze says there have been no such reports in Meeker County, but there has been a surge in other scam reports lately.

Sheriff Cruze says there is an active case right now in which a person lost about $60,000 and was on the verge of losing much more than that and an arrest was made in another state with the suspect’s phone records linking him to a victim in Meeker County.  He says some common scams include a caller saying that you won a large cash sweepstakes, but that you need to pay them first, or someone saying that your credit card or bank account has been compromised or that you owe money to the IRS and will be arrested.

Sheriff Cruze says you should hang up and if you have concerns, call your bank or credit card company to see if your account has any issues, and let the Sheriff’s Office know if you think you’ve been scammed.  He says the criminals in these cases try to put fear in people.

Sheriff Cruze says when you call the dispatchers at the Sheriff’s Office about scams or about any other issues, they will ask for your name, address, phone number and date-of-birth, along with information about your concern which enables them to have a deputy contact you and try to resolve the issue.  He says it may seem cumbersome if you are calling about a drunk driver or speeder or some other emergency, but while you are sharing your information, they are in the process of alerting a deputy who is patrolling the area relevant to your concern.

Sheriff Cruze says they would rather have you call in about something that may be unfounded than to have it not reported and lead to someone being hurt.  He says they keep track of calls in the event that there may be a mental health issue or someone calling in consistently about things that turn out not to be true.