Telephone Scam Alert

The Choctaw County Sheriff’s Office was notified last week by a resident about a scam artist using a telephone number registered to a local Choctaw County resident.  Today the sheriff’s office was notified by two additional callers about the same issue.  In all cases, the caller I.D. showed up as a local resident or a local business.  Once the home owner answered the telephone the scam artist attempted to collect money from the resident.  This type of practice is known as “spoofing”.  Spoofing has traditionally occurred using non local numbers, but it appears that the technology is available to spoof local numbers.  If this happens to you the best practice would be to simply hang the telephone up without having any discussion with the person.  Open up your telephone book and call the local business or resident from the number listed in your telephone book and attempt to verify the call yourself.