PONTIAC, Mich. \u2013 A Michigan mother shared her harrowing experience after scammers impersonated an Oakland County sheriff\u2019s officer and swindled her family out of $2,100 following her daughter\u2019s arrest for drunk driving.<\/p>\n
The woman spoke to Local 4 under the condition of anonymity.<\/p>\n
The ordeal began on her daughter\u2019s 21st birthday.<\/p>\n
The mother and her husband had warned their daughter about drinking and driving, but when she didn\u2019t come home the next morning, they grew concerned.<\/p>\n
Checking her location through a tracking app, the mother saw that her daughter was at the Oakland County Sheriff\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Shortly after, the daughter\u2019s father received a call from a man claiming to be Officer Michael Williams from Oakland County.<\/p>\n
The caller said the mother would receive instructions on how to post a $500 bond.<\/p>\n
The fake officer explained that due to COVID-19 restrictions, bond payments could not be made in person and had to be paid via apps like Zelle or Venmo, although those machines were allegedly not working. He sent a barcode to the mother to scan at a CVS store to pay the bond.<\/p>\n
The mother followed the instructions, withdrawing $500 in cash and paying the bond through the barcode scan.<\/p>\n
Soon after, the scammer called again demanding additional payments: $480 for a tether device and $900 for mandatory classes the daughter had to attend before release.<\/p>\n
At that point, the mom told the so-called officer, her daughter could pay, so she gave him the phone number, who then collected a total of $2,100 from the daughter as she was leaving jail.<\/p>\n
The plot unraveled when the mother was told her daughter was already on her way home and no further payments were necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s when it clicked in my mind that this was all a scam,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She contacted her credit union, which informed her that no refunds could be made since the payments were willingly given. The Michigan State Police were called and filed an incident report.<\/p>\n
Authorities confirmed that the Oakland County jail never asks for money over the phone and only accepts cash payments in person. <\/p>\n
The scammers reportedly monitor the jail\u2019s online inmate listings to identify recent bookings and then research family members\u2019 contact information to target them.<\/p>\n
The mother described the experience as one of the worst days of her life, expressing sadness over her daughter\u2019s arrest and anger at the scammers\u2019 cruelty. <\/p>\n
Despite the financial loss and emotional toll, she hopes the scammers will one day realize the harm they cause and change their ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, in my heart, I want to forgive, and I just pray for them, and I hope that one day they realize what they\u2019re doing to people and change,\u201d she said. \u201c[It\u2019s] just hard to believe. I guess they\u2019re way worse off than I am if this is how they choose to live their life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michigan State Police urge the public to be cautious and warn that any requests for money over the phone related to jail bonds are scams.<\/p>\n
Families are encouraged to verify information directly with the jail and avoid sending money through apps or barcodes.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 by WDIV ClickOnDetroit – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PONTIAC, Mich. \u2013 A Michigan mother shared her harrowing experience after scammers impersonated an Oakland County sheriff\u2019s officer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120716,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,904,145,144,3131],"class_list":{"0":"post-120715","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-oakland","9":"tag-oakland-county","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news","12":"tag-pontiac"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}