Bucks County Sheriff's Office warns of phone scam

BUCKS COUNTY, Pa. (FOX 29) - Next time your phone rings and you don't recognize the number you may not want to pick up. The Bucks County Sheriff's Office says someone is impersonating their office and trying to scam people out of money.

FOX 29's Brad Sattin has the story.

"I knew it was a scam right away." Cathy Goodman, of Feasterville, has heard it all before.

"She just starts to go on about, there's some kind of warrant for the arrest, there's been a violation and I basically just hang up," she told FOX 29.

But that wasn't the end of it. She says it happened three times to her in one day.

The scams aren't new, but they are on the rise. The latest, supposedly coming from the Social Security Administration, the Bucks County Police Association and the sheriff's office. None of them are legit. At least one victim shelled out $650 this week.

Cathie posted on Facebook about it and her friends were also called.

And in this family, it's not just Cathy. Her husband, Scott, gets them non-stop as well.

"I have 36 blocked people on this phone right now, but it's probably in the 200 range," he said.

He blocks the numbers and then makes up some innovative names for the unknown callers.

And talk about high-tech. Scammers seem to be getting phone numbers from real people. When Scott called back one of the numbers.

"He said you called me originally and you solicited to me. I said, 'No you solicited to me,'" he said. "Somebody had used both our numbers to call each other."