North Idaho scam calls keep coming

POST FALLS — A scam that has callers impersonating law officers and threatening arrests unless money is paid continues to make the rounds in Kootenai County.

Most recently, Post Falls police said a caller poses as an officer speaking to an individual about outstanding warrants and tries to obtain money to offset the debt. The number they are calling from indicates it is from the police.

People receiving this call have reported that the callers request payment in gift cards or cryptocurrency to take care of the warrant.  

Capt. Mark Brantl of Post Falls Police said that the scam has come up before in the last couple of years and that previous scams have “spoofed” or faked the department's phone number.  

The Kootenai County Sheriff's Office and the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office also recently reported that locals have been targeted by the same scam.

KCSO Lt. Jeff Howard said they receive daily reports about scams.

He said in the past, a scammer would call from an unknown number pretending to be with a company. They would demand money to pay off a debt or there would be consequences such as foreclosures or shutting down utilities.

Another scam would offer the victim money via the Publisher’s Clearing House, but fees associated with getting the money would have to be paid up front. In most scenarios, the scammer would direct the victim to purchase gift cards and then transfer the money, Howard said.

The current trend, which started more than a month ago, "is quite more sophisticated," Howard said. 

The perpetrators have been spoofing the sheriff’s office phone number. 

"They have even found real deputies and used their names. I’ve even heard my name used by the scammers," Howard said. 

The scammers tell the victim they have a warrant and need to deposit money in bitcoin machines to make the warrant go away.

"They have gone as far as getting the victim’s address and some of their personal information to look legitimate and threatening to send deputies to their house to arrest them if they don’t comply," Howard said.

The biggest issue is trying to track the caller. They have been using technology so their phone numbers can’t be tracked utilizing local resources. 

"To my understanding, we haven’t had any proof the scammers are local, which makes this a multijurisdictional issue," Howard said.

The FBI and Homeland Security have investigated the scam, and KCSO urges anyone who has received these calls to report them to fraud.com or ic3.gov. Both of these sites will forward the report to the appropriate investigative agency. 

"If someone has fell victim to the scheme, we want them to contact us so we can ensure a report is taken and we will forward that to the appropriate agency," Howard said.

One local man told The Press he lost about $15,000 to the scam. He said the callers were convincing, insistent and even threatened to arrest his wife when he said he wanted to tell her what was going on.

KCSO wants anyone who hasn’t lost money to still report it to those websites because it doesn't have the resources to take these calls all day long, and it is quicker to report it to those databases.