Sanford police seeing more reports of fraud
Mar. 5—The Sanford Police Department is seeing an uptick in the number of fraud cases reported each week.
"We do have our share and there's really not a cookie cutter fraud," Detective Capt. Brad Upchurch said Thursday.
Some are the result of stolen identities, credit or debit cards; some are phone scams in which an individual may be coerced to send money; and there are those perpetrated by computer hackers.
Whatever way, the results can be financially devastating to people or businesses.
A Sanford business was conned out of more than $31,000 recently, according to police reports, while one resident was swindled out of more than $11,000.
"A lot of what we get are pretty simple things like people lending out debit cards or credit cards and then the person exceeds what they were supposed to spend," Upchurch said. "People using lost or stolen cards. We get a lot of check frauds. People are making pretty good counterfeit checks these days."
In some cases, a stolen identity is used to open an account and the victim knows nothing about it — at least until a debt collector calls or they see it on a bill or credit report, Upchurch said.
"Some of the more sophisticated frauds we get involve the perpetrators posing as a legitimate business and hacking into email chains," he said.
That allows the culprit to monitor conversations, wait until a bill is due and then send an email requesting payment.
"They'll use an address that is slightly different than the legitimate, but close enough that the victim will not notice," Upchurch said. "Luckily, these are pretty rare, but they normally involve larger sums of money, things like real estate transactions."
So how can individuals or businesses protect themselves from these scams?
By keeping a close eye on and monitoring accounts, according to Upchurch.
"Some things we recommend are keep a regular check on credit reports; closely monitor credit cards and bank statements; and be cautious with sensitive financial information — shred documents before throwing them in the trash," he said.
Other red flags, especially with emails, include the language or grammar used in the body of the message. Look for misspelled words, broken English or incomplete sentences.
Use credit cards rather than debit cards for transactions. Credit cards provide more security than debit cards, Upchurch said.
If an offer or prize sounds too good to be true or requires a payment in return for the winnings, well, it's likely an undesirable looking to win your savings and checking cash.
Victims should know that state law allows them to file police reports of fraud with the law enforcement agency of their residence, not where the crime occurred, Upchurch said.
