Belleville Police Department warns residents about telephone scam

The Belleville Police Department has been notified of a fraudulent phone scam used to deceive people out of money.

A representative from the department was not immediately available for comment.

According to the Belleville Police Department’s Facebook page, the person claims to be a Belleville police officer or detective and demands some form of monetary payment.

On its Facebook page, the department said they would never call and demand any payment for criminal charges, nor would they ever take any gift cards, Google cards, or Apple cards as payment.

Officers or detectives have contacted people with complaints signed against them; however, they are always told to come to the Belleville Police Department, 720 West Main St., to speak to an officer or detective in person.

If there is a bond to be paid, then that information or transaction will be done in person at headquarters, never over the phone or online, the Belleville Police Department noted on its Facebook page.

As a general rule, the department advises, if anyone receives a call where they are asked for payment through gift cards, Google cards, or Apple cards, they should hang up and be cautious with their interactions with that person.

The same rule would apply to people asking for personal information over the phone.

The AARP offers these tips for handling potentially fraudulent calls on their website:

• Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers.
• Don’t return one-ring calls from unknown numbers. These may be scams to get people to call hotlines in African and Caribbean countries that have U.S.-style three-digit area codes, and people could incur hefty connection and per-minute fees.
• Don’t follow instructions on a prerecorded message, such as “Press 1” to speak to a live operator (it will probably lead to a phishing expedition) or press any key to get taken off a call list (it will probably lead to more robocalls).
• Don’t give personal or financial data, such as a Social Security number or credit card account number, to callers people don’t know. If they say they have the information and just need the individual to confirm it, that’s a trick.
• Don’t pay registration or shipping charges to get a supposed free product or prize. Such fees are ploys to get payment information.
• Don’t make payments by gift card, prepaid debit card or wire transfer. Fraudsters favor these methods because they are hard to trace.

This story was originally published June 9, 2021 at 3:23 PM.