Wise County Sheriff's Department
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07-23-07

        The Wise County Sheriff’s Office received information on Friday July 20th from a concerned citizen who had received a call from a man identifying himself as John Baker.  Baker advised the citizen that he was with “ Winners International “ and that a check for an unspecified amount was waiting to be delivered to the citizen. Baker advised the check number was 40221 and that his number was 1-(876) 859-3516. After giving him these numbers, Baker was very insistent that the citizen repeat the phone number and the check number back to him and when the citizen would not, Baker hung up.

        The deputy called the phone number and did speak with a male subject that identified himself as John Baker; the deputy identified himself and advised where he worked. When asked if Baker had called Wise County and spoke, to someone regarding a check waiting for him or her, Baker hung up on the Deputy.  The deputy advised the area code was verified to be from Jamaica.

      These kinds of scams occur all of the time. This is another scam that allows the suspect access to your phone service. Last week we had a scam involving someone receiving an e-mail stating the possible recipient was going to be killed if they did not pay the suspect monies.  After sending out notice of this e-mail we received information from numerous other agencies that they had seen the same type of scam. The International Lottery scams are still just as popular as they have ever been.  If you receive a call from someone telling you you’ve won something and all you have to do is send a processing fee or advanced fees to complete a transaction, it will end up costing a lot more in the end.

         Never give personal information, banking information or allow anyone else to release your information to unknown persons on the phone or the Internet.  

 Sgt Debbie Denney, CPO/PIO

Wise County Sheriff’s Office