Muscogee County Sheriff's Office is being impersonated by scammers

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL ) — The Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office has become the latest pawn for scammers as they are impersonating employees.  

The Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office says this scam comes around every couple of months. Scammers will use the public information the office provides to get names of supervisors or ranked officials to call people for money. 

Captain John Thomas with Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office says, “Usually they'll use the story of, Oh, you missed court, We have a subpoena for you and you didn't come to jury duty.  We have a warrant for you and you need to pay this fine to avoid being arrested in this warrant.”

Thoams says that is simply not the case. 

“We're not going to call you and tell you we have a warrant out for your arrest.” says Thomas. “We're just going to go and find you.  You know, So  that's a simple thing to remember. “

Thomas says those most vulnerable to this scam are the elderly. 

He says if you receive calls like this to pay attention to detail. 

“ A lot of times they'll say the sheriff's department or they can make you indicate that there's no such thing in Georgia as a sheriff's department. So sheriff's office.  So little things like that. Pay attention of what name they use,” Thomas explains.

“And  most important thing the public needs to remember is the sheriff's office will not call anyone  and request a payment for anything.  We just don't we don't process payments like that at the sheriff's office. So that is the number one way to know that is a scam  is that we're just at the end of the day, we're not calling to collect any money from anyone,” Thomas says.

The Muscogee County Sheriff’s Office says if you receive a call like this to hang up and contact their office.