Yesterday we put up a post reminding members of scams targeting persons on the registry. That wasn’t the first time we warned our members, but despite putting up the posts and adding it to our weekly update, we get frequent calls from people who’ve been targeted or worse, taken for thousands of dollars.
These posts help the 2000 or so who belong to FAC, but not the other 72,000 whose information is on the Florida registry but don’t know about us yet. If FDLE is going to put our information online and make us easy targets for being victimized, they should be the ones warning and educating registrants, not us!
What adds insult to injury is when registrants report this to law enforcement, we’re told they do nothing about it. If these criminals know they have free reign to impersonate police and scam those on the registry, it just gives them the green light to continue. We need to hold law enforcement accountable. Insist a police report is filed.
And it’s not just Florida. Yesterday, the Executive Director of the NC affiliate shared his own warning, including a recording of the scam voicemail message he got. His message and recording is below:
This is a message of what those scam callers sounds like:
They do sound very convincing to the average person. But states that restrict registrants from accessing the internet should accept some responsibility. Additionally, private companies such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or other platforms that exclusively ban registrants should take some blame too. The reason for my directed blame is that these laws and policies could have reached registrants if they had not been threatened or unable to learn of such scams from enterprising agencies that often promote overall safety.
What is much worse is that people in North Carolina that attempt to report these scams are turned away from receiving an actual police report. Therefore this gives any scam artist the green light to continue such practices if law enforcement isn’t going to do its job.
Feel free to share this voicemail sample with others. Remind registrants that “police do not call for warrants. Just as registrants do not call to be a cause for alarm.”
Dwayne Daughtry
Executive Director, NCRSOL
I never answer my phone unless I recognize the number calling. If I was left a message like that, I would call my local SOTU and report it to them. I would also block the number that called me and the number on the message.
When a crime occurs it’s Law Enforcement’s duty and job to take a report. If they refuse, I would highly recommend that you should contact Internal Affairs and explain to them that they refused to come out and take a report from you. Further, going through the pollical chain of command, I would then contact the Mayor of the particular city and tell him/her about it. Then, if you get no results, you can contact the media and explain your efforts to them, it would be a much more compelling story.
When they leave a number to be contacted at, it is a shame Law Enforcement can’t be bothered to find out where the call originated from. It cannot be that difficult to do.
Over the past just 20 years, I have had crimes happen at my house, Broken into, vandalism and worse. All three times Law enforcement refused to come take a report. All three times I advised them I would be contacting the 3 major news agencies and asking why a victim of a major crime ( Home invasion ) cannot get the services they pay for with their taxes like any other citizens. All three times officers came out and made reports after my complaint. ( good luck ever getting a follow up though )