By Mary O’KEEFE

The holiday season means family, food … and scams. From “Amazon” contacting folks with orders that were not made to scammers saying they are law enforcement and accusing individuals of having outstanding warrants, the community needs to be aware that scammers are working hard to fool citizens and if people are suspicious they should trust their instincts.

Recently residents in the area have reported receiving calls from scammers stating they represent the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station. The scammer identifies himself/herself as a detective and tells residents there are outstanding warrants in their name, they owe a specific bail amount and, if they don’t pay this amount, they risk arrest. Victims are then told to purchase gift cards in the amount of bail or pay the bail amount through Apple Pay. This is a scam. This time around criminals falsely claim they represent the Santa Clarita Sheriff’s Station; however, this scam has been around a long time and in the past scammers have used a variety of law enforcement titles.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. will never call anyone regarding any of the following: 1) Monetary requests such as gift cards of any type to pay for “warrants.” 2) Delivery of such monies via telephone. 3) COVID relief payments/checks.

“If you are unsure of who you are speaking with, please ask the caller for their information, hang up and call the specific agency in question. Do not give any of your information over the phone,” states the LASD website.

It is also advised not to call any number the person/scammer provides; always look up the agency independently.

Another common scam making the rounds is Amazon impersonators who are reaching out to people confirming purchases that were not actually made.

According to the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) new Data Spotlight, “Since July 2020, about one in three people who have reported a business impersonator scam say the scammer pretended to be Amazon.”

In one version of the scam, the caller offers to refund a person for an unauthorized purchase but “accidentally” transfers more money than promised. The scammer then asks the victim to return the difference.

“The scammer moves your own money from one of your bank accounts to the other [like from savings to checking or vice versa] to make it look like you were refunded. Any money you send back to ‘Amazon’ is your money [not an overpayment] and, as soon as you send it out of your account, it becomes theirs,” according to the FTC.

In another version of the scam the victim is told that hackers were able to get access to his/her account and the only way to protest it is to buy gift cards and share the card’s security number with the scammer.

Some advice from FTC: 1) Never call back an unknown number. Use the information on Amazon’s website and not a number listed in an unexpected email or text. 2) Don’t pay for anything with a gift card. Gift cards are for gifts. If anyone asks to be paid with a gift card – or buy gift cards for anything other than a gift – it’s a scam. 3) Don’t give remote access to someone who makes contact unexpectedly. This gives scammers easy access to personal and financial information – like access to a person’s bank account.

This season beware of those who are trying to rob you of more than your holiday cheer.