Elderly Man Scammed of Thousands-Sheriff's Office Gets $$ Back

There are so many scams circulating throughout the Capital Region. Many of them involve scammers calling claiming to be law enforcement or from the government asking for personal information and money. This time it was successful with an elderly man who was scammed out of thousands. According to News 10 ABC, a seventy-two-year-old Fulton County man was scammed out of over twenty-five thousand dollars and the Fulton County Sheriff's Office stepped in to help.

The scammers called the elderly man claiming to work for the federal government. They then said that they were investigating the man for identity theft and money laundering. They also told the victim that his social security number had been stolen and he needed to pay for a new one. The scammer told him he also had to pay heavily to fix it.

Not knowing it was a scam, the elderly man did mail out three cash payments through FedEx and UPS. He was instructed to mail them to New Jersey and Texas. On the third payment, UPS flagged it for potential fraud. That's where the Fulton County Sheriff's Office got involved. They soon realized that he was involved in a scam. The Fulton County Sheriff's Office figured out the scam and wound up getting all of the money back to the victim.

If you are ever contacted by phone to send money or gift cards and the scammers claiming they are law enforcement or federal government agents, you are to hang up and call local authorities. Only written invoices are sent by government agencies. They will never call and ask for payments.