Chesterton Tribune

 

 

CPD: Woman falls victim to the old pay-debt-or-be-arrested scam

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A Chesterton resident fell afoul of a phone scam this week, Chesterton Police said.

According to police, on Wednesday a 40-year-old woman reported that, after receiving a voicemail from a “Steve Rogers” notifying her of an unpaid debt in her husband’s name, she called an outfit calling itself “Legal Mediation Services” and spoke to a “Tracy Walker,” who made what’s become a con artist’s standard threat: “an arrest warrant was going to be issued” for the woman’s husband unless the debt was paid.

The woman, accordingly, provided Walker with her debit card number to withdraw an initial payment of $280, then a different debit card number for further withdrawals of $313.32 on March 1, March 15, and March 31. The woman “also completed a payment authorization via e-mail for the company to have access to her account,” police said.

After doing all these things, the woman then “decided to check on line for the company,” where she found “numerous complaints” posted by people about the Legal Mediation Services. At this point the woman realized she’d been scammed.

The woman first contacted her bank and had both accounts canceled, although $280 had already been withdrawn from one of them. She then filed her complaint with the CPD.

“When I got back to the CPD,” the investigating officer stated in his report, “I called and spoke with ‘Tracy Walker.’ She got angry and hung up on me. I then called approximately 30 more times and spoke with approximately 10 different people. I was unable to gain any more information that could help get their location. I did, however, reach a point where they would not speak with me. They just answered the phone and hung it back up without talking.”

 

Posted 2/26/2016

 
 
 
 

 

 

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