Residents of Memphis, please be on alert: scammers have found a new way to try to separate you from your personal information and, potentially, your money. The Memphis Police Department has issued a warning about fraudulent phone calls where scammers are falsifying their non-emergency numbers to impersonate officers. According to a social media post from the Memphis Police Department, these con artists are telling people they have an outstanding warrant and then proceed to request sensitive information.
The police have made it very clear: they will never call residents unexpectedly to solicit personal details or tell them they have a warrant. They also emphasized that in the event you do happen to call the police and the call gets disconnected, attempting to legitimately call back will not cause this number to appear on your caller ID suddenly. This should be a clear sign that you need to hang up quickly if you receive a call that raises suspicion. The department's Facebook post from May 29th is advising the community to directly report any such incidents.
The nature of this scam is particularly insidious, not just because it preys on fears about law enforcement, but because it uses a technique known as "spoofing" to make their calls seem more credible. Spoofing is when a scammer manipulates the caller ID to display a different phone number from the one they are calling from. In this case, they are using the official non-emergency number for the Memphis Police Department, which is 901-545-2677.
