U.S. Marshal’s office phone number is being ‘spoofed’ to scam people out of money

The U.S. Marshals Service in Southern Illinois wants the public to know about a phone imposter scam where con artists are “spoofing” the district office’s real number to trick people to sending money.

“This tactic is known as neighbor spoofing, where scammers using technology to modify what number appears on your caller ID to impersonate local area numbers. Since a local area code appears on the caller ID, the call appears to be legitimate. Numbers can also appear to be phone numbers from friends, local businesses and in our case, law enforcement,” said Karen Simons, deputy chief marshal of the Southern District of Illinois.

U. S. Marshal Brad Maxwell said, “Our agency is receiving hundreds of calls at offices nationwide from people asking us why the U.S. Marshals are seeking money from them. We want people to know these calls are scams.”

The U.S. Marshals Service urges people who receive these calls to call their local FBI office (https://www.fbi.gov/contact-us) and to file a consumer complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which has the ability to detect patterns of fraud from the information they collect.

Scammers use a variety of tactics to sound credible. They sometimes provide badge numbers, names of actual law enforcement officials, federal judges and courthouse addresses.

“During the scam calls, the con artist tells their prey they can pay them money in lieu of arrest for failing to report for jury duty or other offenses,” Maxwell said.

If you believe you were a victim of these con artists, you should remember:

▪ The U.S. Marshals will never ask for credit/debit card numbers, gift card numbers, wire transfers or bank routing numbers for any purpose. Don’t divulge personal or financial information to unknown callers.

▪ Report scam phone calls to your local FBI office and to the FTC.

▪ You can remain anonymous when you report.

▪ If a scammer provides a court order, authenticate the call by calling the clerk of the court’s office of the U.S. District Court in your area and verify the court order given by the caller. For any additional information, go to the U.S. Marshals website at www.usmarshals.gov.

This story was originally published June 27, 2019 at 6:34 PM.