Stop, Verify, Report: Protect Yourself From Scams and Fraud
Scams can arrive by phone, text message, email, social media, mail, or even at your door. The details change, but the pressure tactics are often the same: create fear or urgency, prevent you from thinking clearly, and convince you to send money or disclose personal information.
Caller ID, email addresses, logos, and social-media profiles can all be copied or manipulated. A message that appears to come from a government agency, financial institution, utility company, family member, employer, or law-enforcement officer may still be fraudulent.
Common warning signs
Pause when someone:
- Demands immediate action or tells you to keep the matter secret.
- Threatens arrest, loss of benefits, disconnection of service, or another serious consequence unless you pay.
- Requests payment by gift card, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, payment app, or cash.
- Asks for your password, PIN, verification code, Social Security number, banking information, or a photo of a gift card.
- Wants remote access to your computer or phone.
- Sends an unexpected check and asks you to return part of the money.
- Claims a family member is in jail, injured, or in another emergency and needs money immediately.
The DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office will never demand payment by gift card, cryptocurrency, wire transfer, or payment app to avoid arrest.
Stop. Verify. Report.
- Stop. Do not let urgency make the decision for you. End the call or conversation. Do not click links, open attachments, download software, or send money.
- Verify independently. Contact the person, business, or agency using a phone number or website you already know is legitimate. Do not use the contact information supplied in the suspicious message.
- Talk to someone you trust. Scammers often depend on secrecy. A family member, friend, bank employee, or law-enforcement officer may recognize the warning signs.
- Protect your accounts. If you shared account information or sent money, contact your bank, card issuer, or payment service immediately. Change compromised passwords, enable multifactor authentication, and preserve messages, receipts, phone numbers, and transaction details.
- Report it. Reporting quickly may help limit losses and may protect others from the same scheme.
Where to report fraud
- If there is an immediate threat or emergency, call 911.
- For a non-emergency report in DeKalb County, call the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office at (260) 925-3365.
- Report fraud to the Federal Trade Commission at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
- Report internet-enabled fraud to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center at IC3.gov.
- File an Indiana consumer complaint with the Indiana Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division.
Share these warning signs with family members, friends, and neighbors. A short conversation today may prevent a financial loss tomorrow.
