Henderson County Sheriff’s Dept. warns community of spoofing scam
HENDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — One victim shares their story of a scam that affected them, so you will be made aware.
The Henderson County Sheriff’s Department has recently received an influx of reports of a scam. These scammers are spoofing the sheriff’s office phone numbers and impersonating former deputies in hopes to receive money.
“They told me the whole time ‘You’re gonna get your money back once you show up to the office. You just can’t pay it here because we don’t have the federal kiosk,'” said Emily Catdle.
Catdle is a teacher in Memphis who unfortunately picked up a phone call when she saw the sheriff’s department phone ID and worried it was bad news.
“So, I panicked, and they said I needed to pay this citation to prove that I was gonna show up to Henderson County Sheriff’s Office and not evade arrest. And I was crying — really upset — so I left work and got the money and sent it to them,” said Catdle.
She says that the scammer began asking her for $6,000 after telling them she couldn’t, they began blackmailing her.
“So once I was on my way to Henderson County and had left work, they got my other email address, the one I have now. And then said there was illegal activity in my spam folder and that got me more flustered more confused and more upset,” said Catdle.
The Henderson County Sheriff’s Department says these scammers are asking for gift cards or bitcoins because this form of transaction is not retraceable.
“So they went pretty low they started describing like images that they said were in my email address, in my spam. I was just sobbing. I was so upset, I was driving, I was crying and the only thing I could think about is, my life is over and I didn’t even do anything,” said Catdle.
After paying $8,000 to these scammers, she says they began to threaten her even more.
“Knowing I was a teacher he said ‘If you hang up, because we have you on the phone, I will arrest you in front of your students.’ So, it was terrifying I just did what I could to like make it stop,” said Catdle.
After she was calm, Catdle reached out the Henderson County Sheriff’s Department and they instructed her to hang up. This is an ongoing investigation for Henderson County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.
Investigators with the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office urge you to hang up the phone and call their department if you receive this call.
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