The Lincoln Police Department is recommending people to hang up the phone if they’re being asked to buy gift cards or cryptocurrency over the phone. “Our investigators recently worked on several cases involving scammers targeting local businesses and duping an employee who thought their “boss” was calling into losing thousands of dollars,” says Public Information Officer Erika Thomas.
She says one of those cases happened last month. “Where an employee got an email from someone claiming to be her boss,” Thomas says. “That communication with the scammer then turned over to text messages and there was a loss of $6,000 used to purchase Sephora gift cards.”
Another business lost $3,300 when an employee used the money to purchase BitCoin after scammers called and texted false information about their boss. “If you have any doubts, the best practice is to just hang up or stop responding to text messages and then verify the caller’s identity by reaching out directly to the person they’re claiming to be,” Thomas says.
She says if you think you’ve been scammed call police and file a report.