PORT ANGELES — A smattering of phone and email scams have being reported on the North Olympic Peninsula in recent weeks, but authorities say the problem is nowhere near the level it was last year.
In many cases, an automated voice asks the would-be victim to provide bank account information.
Targets are told that their accounts have been compromised, or that they have won a large sum of money and need to provide an account number to claim it.
Port Angeles Police Detective Cpl. Jason Viada said one person phoned city police to report a scam call Saturday.
“That’s the only one I am aware of that is recent,” Viada said. “I think most people know this is scam.”
Jefferson County Sheriff Tony Hernandez said there have been no recent complaints, although he received a scam call on his cellphone last week.
The message said his Quimper Credit Union account had been compromised. The call was not from Quimper Credit Union.
“Never give out personal information,” Hernandez cautioned.
“And anytime you get an automated phone message that is suspicious, go to your local bank and speak with them about whether of not it was a valid message.”
In the spring of 2010, thousands of residents of Jefferson and Clallam counties received automated phone calls to both land lines and cellphones in which an automated recording stated their Quimper Community Federal Credit Union or Strait-View Credit Union accounts had been compromised.
The message urged customers to provide their account information. The scammers targeted people who were and were not customers of those credit unions.
More than $12,000 was scammed from Strait-View customers. About $2,500 was stolen from Quimper customers from February 2010 to May 2010.
Authorities said the scam ended as quickly as it started.
“That [phone scam] is pretty much a ongoing thing, but it goes in cycles,” Clallam County Undersheriff Ron Peregrin said.
“The scammers target one area, and they start rotating around.”
About two weeks ago, the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office received a complaint of a phone scam in which the victim was told they were entitled to millions of dollars.
“If it’s too good to be true, it generally isn’t true,” Peregrin said.
The Sheriff’s Office has received no such complaints within the last week.
Peregrin said the elderly are often the targets. He said hanging up the phone on a scammer or deleting suspicious email is akin to locking the doors on your car.
While the phone scams appear to have subsided, Hernandez said email scams are becoming more and more common.
“It’s definitely on the rise,” he said.
“It’s happing at a much high frequency than it ever has in the past.”
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
