(From the Seneca County Sheriff’s Office)

Be warned Seneca County Residents, the scammers have made their rounds back to our county…..again.

The recent scammers are using our name, SENECA COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE and collecting some of our names off of our website or annual reports and calling your landlines and cell phones and sounding official and even texting documents to your cell phones that look “official”. The typical scam is that you have a warrant because you missed a court date or jury duty, out of Toledo for Federal Court and a Judge has signed a warrant for your arrest. But you can pay it off and not be arrested. They then request $$$ over the phone be sent to them through gift cards or something similar.

For the thousandth time, NO POLICE/SHERIFF official will call you and threaten to arrest you if you don’t send them an ITUNE card or other means of sending money. IF you have a warrant we will come speak with you in person, in uniform with warrant in hand and if it isn’t a Felony then you will be allowed to post bond but not to us as we do not take money, that would be at the court or at TPD Dispatch. PLEASE just hang up and block that number.

There is no need to contact our office or the courthouse as this is 100% a scam. From what we can tell it has been going around about a week now in our County and even our own Deputies are getting the calls and when confronted the scammer hangs up. Of course they spoof the number they are calling on so it cannot be tracked. They have tried using Deputy’s names and a couple of our sergeants or made up Sergeant names, and just today are using our Chief Deputy’s name to make it sound official or to make you second guess yourselves because you may know the name they are using.

Please do not fall for this and let everyone know, especially your elderly relatives who may not be on social media and read this, to just hang up and block the number. The sooner they get no responses (ie. $$$) then they will move on to another geographical area to try their scam.

-Sheriff Stevens