Henderson police warn of phone scam involving gift cards

By Kailyn Brown

Thursday, June 16, 2016 | 7:25 p.m.

Henderson Police are warning residents about scammers posing as employees or contractors for the IRS and demanding payments via iTunes gift cards and other suspicious methods.

Within the last month, at least three Henderson residents have been scammed for several thousand dollars, spokeswoman Michelle French said.

In one of the cases, Henderson police were notified about the scam by bank personnel who reported that an elderly man asked to withdraw “unusual amount of money” from his bank account, French said.

“They said it sounded a little unusual and they were concerned about the age of the person,” she said.

In a typical situation, a scammer will call a victim, claiming that a tax return wasn't completed correctly and a penalty is owed, police said. The scammer threatens victims with arrest if they don’t pay with an iTunes gift card or via direct deposit from a bank account.

In another type of scam known as the “grandfathers scam,” a senior citizen will receive a call that his grandchild is in danger and that he must pay through iTunes gift cards to get them out jail or harm’s way, police said. The victim is told to read the serial numbers off the back of the card. Ultimately, the scammer uses the information to sell the gift cards online and receive cash in return.

In addition to iTunes gift cards, scammers may also demand payments with Amazon gift cards, PayPal, reloadable prepaid cards including Green Dot, MoneyPak, Reloadit, Vanilla Visa gift cards, or by wiring money through services like Western Union or MoneyGram. This is a key warning sign because government agencies do not require people to use such payment methods.

“I had never heard of this scam through iTunes gift cards,” French said. “Scammers find new ways of trying to lure people into these scams and it’s unfortunate because they seem to target the elderly,” she said.

If people receive a suspicious call, they are urged to hang up the phone and report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint.