HAYS COUNTY, Texas — The Hays County Sheriff's Department and San Marcos Police Department have issued alerts to residents about a phone scam.
In this scam, the person calling pretends to be a member of the Hays County Sheriff's Office or the San Marcos Police Department and claims that the person they are calling has a pending arrest warrant. The callers then say you need to pay a fine to get rid of the warrant or make a deposit at a bitcoin kiosk.
This technique is known as "spoofing," which can display a legitimate phone number for the organization the caller claims to be from. The scammers have also been using the real names of Hays County deputies and San Marcos police officers to seem more legitimate.
According to the Hays County Sheriff's Department, neither the department nor the Hays County courts will ever call and ask for money to clear warrants – that is done through the court system. The department asks that if you receive a call like this, you immediately end the call. You can also call the sheriff’s office's non-emergency number at 512-393-7896 or the San Marcos Police Department's non-emergency line at 512-753-2108 to verify that any information you receive is true.
This is not the only phone scam related to a police department that's been recently reported.
The Fredericksburg Police Department put out a message on its Facebook page on July 25, warning residents of a similar scam in the area. The scammers are calling people in Fredericksburg pretending to be "Lt. Paul Dooley" with the Fredericksburg Police Department and asking for money to clear warrants. The Fredericksburg Police Department does not employ an officer named Paul Dooley and said it will never ask for money to clear warrants.
On July 18, 2023, another one of these scams was reported to the Austin Police Department. A person identifying themselves as an employee of APD was calling people and saying they were under arrest unless they paid the caller $1,000 in gift cards.