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SCAM ALERTS

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 The Fort Wayne Police Department would like to remind the community that:

  • Scams can take many forms but always include seemingly free money or a great deal on the condition that the recipient of the fraudulent check forward some of the money from the check to another party. The victim will cash the check, see that the money has deposited in their account, and gladly forward a small portion of the funds. However, days later the check will bounce, the funds will disappear from the victim’s account, and the victim will still be held responsible by the bank for the funds that the victim transferred.

  • Never accept checks from persons or business that you do not personally know and never accept or cash checks that you are not expecting to receive.

  • Remember that no government agency or business will accept gift cards and bitcoin for any type of services or fees. You should never give out personal identifying information over the telephone or the internet to anyone unless you are sure of who you are speaking to.

  • If you ever have suspicions about a check or an unsolicited financial offer from a stranger, contact your bank or the bank who issued the check. If an unsolicited financial offer feels suspicious, it is usually a scam.

  • Contact the Better Business Bureau (BBB) to check how trustworthy a business is. You can also file a business review or complaint. Visit https://www.bbb.org for more information. 

 Learn more about common scams that take place in the community:

 

Details

SCAM ALERT

The Fort Wayne Police Department has been getting reports from the public, and Detectives have been  getting alerts from businesses (pawn shops and jewelry buyers), that members of the general public are being scammed by a crew of people at gas station lots and on parking lots of various shopping centers locally. 

The one constant in the scam is that someone will approach a citizen, give them a tale of woe and then hard sell that citizen jewelry for a very small amount of money.  The jewelry is very heavy and at the time appears to be genuine.  The folks who buy the jewelry, thinking they’re going to turn a tidy profit, then go to one of the businesses and find out that the jewelry is either highly polished brass or heavily gold plated junk metal and is absolutely worthless.

Our suspects are Hispanic-appearing with heavy accents, and are very aggressive in their sales-pitch.

The general feeling is that, with the economy being the way it is, people are thinking they’ll be able to make a little extra money by reselling the items they buy or they’re just trying to get this aggressive person out of their space.  Either way, the general public needs to be aware of this so they can prevent being taken advantage of.

If anyone comes into contact with these individuals attempting to sell them junk jewelry, please call 911.