WARNING: New Scam Targets Sex Offenders
The following was shared by a Member:
I’m writing to inform you of a scam that was pulled on my husband who is a sex offender last night in hopes you can share with others so it doesn’t happen to them. He received a phone call from a man claiming to be a deputy from SPOT. Long story short, he convinced my husband that he missed his registration because he wasn’t told that he now needed to register quarterly instead of every 6 months. In order to not be arrested, he told him that he could place a bail deposit of $500 and then he could register at the sheriff’s office and not be booked into jail. After instructing him to purchase a prepaid money pak from Walgreens, he then asked for the card number of the money pak so he could enter it in the system before he arrived at the sheriff’s office. My husband became very skeptical at this point and did not give him the number, went to the sheriff’s office, which was closed and basically pushed the man’s buttons until he exploded, calling him a “kid fucker” and saying he made $5,500 off of sex offenders this week. I am glad he didn’t scam him out of the $500, but furious that someone is taking advantage of sex offenders because they are so scared to get arrested for something they didn’t know they did wrong. I am also terrified because our address is listed online and he could come to our house at any time. I hope you can tell others about this so they can verify won they are talking to if it happens to them. This man knew a lot about SPOT and the process of registering as a sex offender.
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Had this happen to me two days ago. Fortunately, I trusted my instincts, and drove to the Sheriffs Office, instead of to a retailer to purchase the “Safe-N-Secure” voucher they told me I needed to get. What a crock of shit. They kept me on the phone the whole time, and sounded VERY believable. They used local geographical landmarks, and talked about the inside of the lobby at the Sheriff’s office.
When I got to the Sheriff’s Office, the doors were locked, and the parking lot was vacant. I told the guy that I beat him by keeping him on the phone for an hour and not giving him a nickel.
Just FYI, I’m in Texas and this same scam call happened to me two days ago. My suspicions and curiousity led me to doing a search on “sex offender scam” and I found this site. Anyway, I’m out washing my car and the phone rings, answering machine picks up the first part of it – a guy saying he’s a detective and needs to speak with me about issues of my registration. I picked it up and he’s telling me the sex offender laws have changed this year and that I should have received notice of this; since I haven’t I will need to take care of it ASAP. He says he’s calling from the local PD (which is only 10 minutes from my house), so I tell him, fine, I’ll drive over there and meet you. He cuts me off saying I can’t get in my car unless I have a cell phone (which I don’t) to stay in touch with him and that I need to drive to the nearest retail store and buy a prepaid phone and then call him from there. The nearest retail store is 20 miles from me so I tell him I’m not doing that… that he can just drive over here from the PD and pick me up if he has to. He gets belligerent and finally says he’s not a detective and starts berating me about my offense from 20 years ago. Anyway, after giving him my thoughts of him in a couple of (censored) words I hung up.
Good for you. You can’t imagine how many people find us only AFTER they’ve been screwed by these scammers.
Unfortunately, registrants are so paranoid of getting violated for something they have never heard of, they don’t take chances and just do whatever someone tells them.
Happened in Georgia this morning.
Emailed by Member;
I just spoke with my roommate, who says that a coworker of his, who is also a registered citizen here in FL who relayed that he had been ‘scammed’ of $1500 to persons posing as law enforcement here in Florida. They reportedly told that person that a warrant was being issued for his arrest for failure to register, and that he would need to purchase a “green-dot” bond for $1500 in order to keep from being arrested. This coworker purchased the bond, and later found out that it was a scam. According to my roommate, he did report the incident to ‘police’, and they acknowledged that his was not the first incident they had heard of, but I have no knowledge of any further action on their part beyond what I have already stated.
I do not know of any other incidents of this nature, but do wish to pass this along as a caution to anyone who is contacted by people claiming to be part of a legal enforcement agency, particularly if they are asking for money! With the registration reminder service in place, none of us should ever have to worry about being in this situation to begin with!
A similar scam has been reported in Nebraska.
And Texas
It’s hard to believe that NO ONE except NARSOL or a few state action committees are able or willing to do anything about these private and government scam jobs. The entire system is incentivized to promote these nightmarish situations! ALL cash all the time is a good place to start with trying to root all this out. Follow the money! How does that parole officer afford a new Lexus? On his salary from the govt? Is it the kickbacks he gets from the “treatment” providers who pay him cash sweeteners to squeeze their various captive clienteles?
Sounds like someone from within law enforcement running the scam. Something similar like this happened in Fort Worth, Texas albeit slightly different MO. This is simply one more example of how a public registry causes unnecessary harm.