Chesterfield Police warning residents about phone scam

CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — The Chesterfield County Police Department is warning the county’s residents of a phone scam in which victims are being told they have to share sensitive personal information in order to receive a package.

Picture this — you get a call from someone saying they’re from the Department of Homeland Security and that they have a package for you — but they need to know your address and date of birth before they can mail it.

“Never give out any personal information online, to someone over the phone or anything like that,” Corporal Craig Eckrich of Chesterfield Police.

According to Eckrich, the best thing to do in a situation like this is to hang up and directly call the agency or organization the caller claims to represent.

“Do a little work to contact them,” he said. “Don’t just rely on the information [the caller] gave you, because you could just be referring back to the scammers that are trying to get your information.”

Eckrich said incidents of scams, identity theft and fraud are increasing in frequency faster than any other crime in America at the moment. According to the FBI, scams cost victims $3.4 billion in 2023 and there was a 14% increase in scammers targeting elderly victims that year.

“Sometimes, unfortunately, our senior population seems to be more vulnerable to this, but they’ll target anybody,” Eckrich said.

Eckrich said it will be difficult to catch the scammers targeting Chesterfield residents because they could be calling them from anywhere in the world. He also reminds residents that no legitimate organization or business will accept or request payment in the form of cryptocurrency or gift cards.

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