Scammers are posing as law enforcement to target Charlotte residents. Here’s how.

A Charlotte woman says a phone call from who she thought was the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office almost cost her $1,000.

Her post on Nextdoor sparked a conversation about just how common the scam is. Even though the woman was aware of scams like this, she almost fell for it.

“He was not calling randomly. He knew my name and address so it was a targeted scam,” the woman, who chose to not reveal her identity, told The Charlotte Observer.

She claimed the scammer told her she missed jury duty and had been summoned.

“He said ‘It’s okay. We think it’s a problem with the mail. We’ve got about 50 other people who are in the same situation. So you’re not in any trouble. We just need you to come down and straighten it out,’” the woman explained.

She was instructed to pay a pair of $500 fines on a prepaid debit card instead of cash or a credit card. After a two-hour phone call, she finally realized it was a scam when he asked for the hidden barcode number on the back of the prepaid card.

The person on the other end of the line quickly hung up without a transaction being completed.

North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein issued a warning in September that people were being targeted by scammers requesting similar information falsely identifying as law enforcement.

However, the scam has continued to victimize residents, according to Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Deputy Patrik Colson.

“This is not the first time or the first year that this has been going on,” said Colson. “With the pandemic being here and more people settling at home, there’s the opportunity to exploit that.”

Jury summonses and failure to appear notices are always mailed to your home, according to Stein. Law enforcement officers or government officials will not call and threaten you with arrest or fines for missing jury duty. You can also check to see if you’ve missed jury duty by contacting jurymanagementoffice@mecklenburgcountync.gov.

“We (the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office) are not going to ask you for any monetary payments or things like that. We are not a collection agency,” Colson explained. “He (the scammer) tried to erase the paper trail...there’s no law enforcement agency in this nation that does anything of that sort.”

WHAT TO DO IF YOU GET A SCAM CALL

• Hang up and call the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s office directly. Find a number listed on the court or sheriff’s website to verify the call is legitimate.

• Never give out personal information over the phone to someone you don’t know, especially if you’re asked for your social security number, bank account information, or credit card number.

• If you believe that you have been scammed, you can call the NCDOJ Consumer Protection Division at https://ncdoj.gov/file-a-complaint or 1-877-5-NO-SCAM.

“You can’t control them calling you because there’s a lot of public information. But as far as response, you can get as much information as possible to give law enforcement officers so you can get more of a breadcrumb trail to be able to catch these guys,” Colson added. “Make sure you’re asking more questions than they are because they need to verify who they are.”

This story was originally published February 7, 2023 at 3:00 PM.