FAYETTEVILLE -- A scam targeting jail inmates whom companies bonded out has re-emerged in town, Fayetteville police said. The scam uses personal information of both the inmate and the company and has sparked a federal investigation, bonding agents said.
The bonding agent scam is among several scams circulating Northwest Arkansas, but it targets bonding companies and the people they serve. The scam can be costly to families, said Curt Clark, who owns Action Bail Bonds in Bentonville.
Don’t be a victim:
• Never wire money to someone you do not know or to someone with an identity you can’t verify.
• Call the bondsman whose name is being used.
• A legitimate bail bondsman will not call to solicit money or ask for payment over the phone.
• Law enforcement agencies will not call you on the phone to inform you of an impending arrest, and they will not solicit money from you over the phone. Hang up, look up the phone number for the law enforcement agency the person calling you says he represents and call the agency back for verification. Do not get the number from the person you are talking to.
Source: Better Business Bureau
Clark is also the chairman of the Arkansas Professional Bail Bondsman Licensing Board.
The scam has been reported in about 30 Arkansas counties since about a year and a half ago, according to the board. Board officials contacted several federal agencies and the state police over the scam, Clark said.
There's a federal investigation, he said.
A spokeswoman with the FBI in Little Rock didn't return an email or phone message left last week. Brian Marr, special agent in charge for the Little Rock office's U.S. Secret Service, said investigators are aware of the scam, but there's no active investigation.
The licensing board sent members letters warning them about the scam last year, Clark said. In March 2016, the Better Business Bureau warned the scam also targets the loved ones of people who have been bonded out of jail.
"These scammers are able to find the phone numbers of bail bondsman clients via public records," according to the news release for eastern Oklahoma. "The scammers call claiming to be a loved one's bondsman and demand a wire transfer of funds or their bond will be revoked. In many of these types of calls, the scammers curse at the consumer as they make threats."
The most recent report is from a Fayetteville man who bonded out of the Washington County Detention Center and was then called Aug. 2 by a woman who said she was with the bonding company, said Sgt. Craig Stout, Fayetteville police spokesman.
The woman, who knew the name of the bonding agent, demanded more money, Stout said. The woman said if the man didn't pay, his bond would be revoked, Stout said. The woman also demanded the man stay on the phone with her during the exchange, Stout said.
"Their tactics are very abrasive," Clark said. "It can be very scary."
The man then bought a prepaid debit card, as the woman told him to, and gave her the numbers, Stout said. He lost about $145 in the scam, Stout said.
Stout wouldn't release the victim's name, citing an open investigation.
No one knows how the scammers get all the information required to pull off the scam, Clark said.
The information requires details of the agent, company and inmate, he said. The phone numbers also show up as from the bonding company, Clark said.
The scam also has happened to one of Clark's agents, he said.
A man pretended to be the bonding agent and called a man Clark's company had bonded, Clark said. Luckily, the scam failed because the inmate's father knew the bonding agent, Clark said.
Bentonville, Rogers and Springdale police departments had no similar reports of the scam, spokesmen said.
The Benton County Sheriff's Office hasn't heard about the scam, said Keshia Guyll, Sheriff's Office spokeswoman, in an email. Washington County law enforcement agents hadn't heard anything recently, spokeswoman Kelly Cantrell said. The scam hit several counties in Arkansas about a year ago, Cantrell said.
Multiple scams are circulating Northwest Arkansas, law enforcement officials said.
Scams reported recently include people impersonating law enforcement officials, including the U.S. Marshal Service and FBI, and asking for money. Another popular scam impersonates IRS agents or targets elderly people, law enforcement officials said.
The bonding agent scam might target people in jail, but residents should be aware because it affects families, Clark said. Not everyone who goes to jail is a bad person, he said, and many people don't know how the judicial system or bonding companies work. A bonding company won't call and demand more money, Clark said.
"Everyone should be brought up to speed on this scam so that no one gets scammed on any amount of money," he said.
NW News on 08/23/2016