Pittsboro woman loses $3,400; phone scams on the rise

Two neighbors in Pittsboro were scammed by a caller in the same day.

Scammers pretending to be real sheriff's deputies are stealing thousands of dollars from people before the holidays. In recent days, Chatham, Durham, Lee and Wayne counties have all warned about a surge in these scams.

WRAL News talked with two neighbors in Pittsboro who got the same scam call on the same day as the Chatham County Sheriff's Office said it's had at least a dozen reports of scam calls in the last few weeks.

Cynthia Raxter and her neighbor Jamie Hager both got a call within hours of each other.

"He said, 'This is so and so from the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office. We have three warrants for your arrest,'" Raxter said.

A fake deputy threatened to arrest Raxter and Hager for failing to show up in court for jury duty.

"I was mostly irritated that this was interrupting my whole day, that I’d have to go down and deal with this," Hager said.

The scammer offered them a way out of that hassle -- to pay a bond to the court.

"The alternative is being arrested and put in a car and my neighbors looking out the window with me in handcuffs," Raxter said.

Raxter went to the bank, where an alert teller noticed something seemed off and stopped her from sending $3,600 to the scammer.

"I looked at her and said, 'I missed jury duty and I have to go pay bail,'" Raxter said. "And she said it’s a scam."

Hager's caller sent her to an ATM at a CVS pharmacy. She followed the fake deputy's instructions and in an instant lost her money to the scammer.

"It was $3,400 which is a lot, and it mostly just makes me really angry because you work really hard for your money," Hager said.

The Chatham County Sheriff's Office said four people fell victim to the scam, losing thousands of dollars.

Sheriff Mike Roberson said these scammers are skilled at manipulating and isolating their victims.

"They want to get you in an emotional state to make a quick decision and then close down the avenues you have to question what they’re saying," Roberson said.

That's why these neighbors are sharing their experience as a warning to others this holiday season.

"They know you’re busy," Hager said. "They know it’s a stressful time. It’s a good enough plausible story to be believable, and you’re just trying to take care of things."

On Wednesday, the Lee County Sheriff’s Office warned residents of a similar telephone scam, saying several people received a phone call from a person calling himself Lt. Yarborough or Detective Lance. The phone number being used is 919-756-3388.

Like in Chatham County, the caller told people that an order for their arrest has been issued. The scammers are threatening to arrest the victim if they do not pay them a certain amount of money over the phone.

No one from any sheriff's office or police department would ever contact a person to demand any form of money or payment with the threat of being arrested.