Residents warned of telephone scams

Mitchell County has seen a couple of telephone scams recently.

Local law enforcement officers in the sheriff’s department want citizens of the county to know about two specific telephone scams they have been contacted about in the last week.

“We’ve had several calls to the sheriff’s office concerning two particular scams,” Toombs said. “One involves the IRS. In this particular instance, the caller tells the resident he owes back taxes and a levy is going to be placed on their residence.”

First and foremost, the Internal Revenue Service will send you a notice by mail first before they attempt to contact you by phone. If you have not gotten a letter of any type from the IRS, chances are pretty good that the phone call is a scam.

Monday, the sheriff’s office was contacted by a local resident concerning a caller who was representing the Sheriff Office Bereavement Fund. This, too, is a scam.

“Unfortunately, this old scam started back up after the sheriff’s deputy died in Littlefield a few weeks ago. Residents are asked to donate money over the phone to the Sheriff’s Office Bereavement Fund to help “widows and orphans” of officers who have died in the line of duty,”

Sheriff Toombs explained.

These calls are not associated with the Mitchell County Sheriff’s Department in any way.

Toombs reminds citizens the only fundraising event the local department is involved in is a mail-out event held in the spring each year from the Sheriff’s Association of Texas.

If you suspect you have been contacted by a fraudulent organization to not give out any personal information over the phone, and do not divulge any sensitive financial information such as bank account numbers, credit card numbers or Social Security numbers.