phone scam

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - El Dorado County Sheriff's Office responds to calls throughout the county. The following are calls that only pertain to the South and West Shore, including Meyers, South Lake Tahoe, Meeks Bay, Tahoma, and the Echo Summit area. There may be some missing calls due to sheriff's logs not being completed at the time of the story.

Some of those recently added to last week's log:

1/23

4:51 a.m. - Missing Person - Price Road

More than a dozen reports from the public about a phone scam prompted the Washoe County Sheriff's Office to issue an alert.

The callers claim to be a person's grandchild and they are in need of financial assistance because they're in jail, or have been involved in an accident. It is not unusual for scammers to use personal information about a potential victim’s family members in order to sound credible. This type of information is often easily obtained via the Internet or social media.

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - Three Liberty Utilities customers have fallen victim to aggressive phone scams over the last two days taking at least $2,500 from the victims.

In each case the crooks pose as a Liberty Utilities collections representative who threatens to shut off their power if payment was not made within a specified period of time. Sometimes the caller has specific customer information such as last payment amount; Liberty is unaware of how this information has been obtained.

A person, or persons, impersonating deputies from the Douglas County Sheriff's Office, are targeting local residents in what has become a common phone scam.

The scammers call the resident and inform them that they failed to show up for jury duty, and has an active warrant. The impersonator even states dates of notices and case numbers.

The impersonator instructs the residents to wire money or to purchase a pre-paid credit card and they will call back to obtain the credit card numbers.

More than 50 reports of local residents receiving an IRS phone scam came into the El Dorado County Sheriff's office on Wednesday.

The caller, usually a male, tells the person they owe the IRS money and if they don’t pay right now, a warrant will be issued for their arrest. The male caller has been reported as aggressive and threatening. Two women who received phone calls said the scammer threatened to “rape” them.

South Lake Tahoe residents are reporting being the target of a phone scam where people pretending to be from Liberty Utilities call and demand payment.

According to the South Lake Tahoe Police Department, the caller tells the resident that they have a past due bill, and threaten to shut off their power if they don't pay the bill over the phone immediately.