Sergeant Impostor Phone Scam Reported In Burnsville, Minnesota

Minnesota seems to be a hot spot for scams lately, with several simple but impactful scams hitting residents all over the state. The same can be said for Wisconsin, which has also been another hot spot for scams all over the place.

I came across another one on social media today. It was shared by the Burnsville Police Department and warned of yet another scam that is hitting in the area. Burnsville is a few hours from the Twin Ports, which means the scam could easily happen here.

According to their tweet, which was sent out on Friday (February 17th), scammers are now posing as Sergeants from their police department. The spooky thing is that the scammers have the names of real Sergeants that work there, so when they call someone else from the area to scam them, it seems like a real thing.

The scammers leave a message if the person on the other end of the line doesn't answer, saying they need to be called right back. They create urgency by saying that they need to speak with them about something confidential. If I got a voicemail like that, I would definitely be panicking.

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If someone answers the phone or calls back the scammer, they are told they need to pay fees in order to hear about the confidential information or as part of the ruse regarding the confidential information.

A good tell that this is a scam, according to the Burnsville Police Department, is that the name of the city is said wrong. However, if you got a voicemail or were speaking to someone who claimed they wanted to talk to you about confidential information, you may not even notice.

This scam could happen anywhere. It should be obvious by now but just in case it isn't, do not ever give out any personal or financial information over the phone. I recently almost fell for a scam and had I taken extra time to look into it, I wouldn't have gotten as close as I did to falling for it!

While this may seem like a tame scam compared to some recent ones that have made headlines, it is still awful should someone fall for it. One of those recent scams making headlines? A local church reported that someone was posing as their pastor and messaging people for gift cards.