The Pennsylvania State Police are warning Berks County residents about a scam in which callers falsely claim to be deputies with the Berks County Sheriff\u2019s Department and demand money from victims over an alleged missed jury duty warrant.<\/p>\n
According to Pennsylvania State Police Troop L in Reading, victims have reported receiving phone calls or other electronic messages claiming they have a warrant for their arrest because they failed to report for jury duty. The callers tell victims they must pay money to have the warrant removed.<\/p>\n
State police said the scammers identify themselves using the title \u201cDeputy\u201d and various names while pretending to represent the Berks County Sheriff\u2019s Department.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the scammers instruct victims to visit stores such as CVS, Walmart or other retailers, where they are told to use a screenshot of a barcode provided by the caller. Victims are then directed to present the barcode to a store clerk and load money onto the associated account, transferring the funds to the scammer.<\/p>\n
State police emphasized that neither the Berks County Sheriff\u2019s Department nor any other law enforcement agency will contact someone to demand payment to resolve a warrant, especially through gift cards, barcodes or similar payment methods. Authorities also said legitimate law enforcement agencies would never direct someone to a retail store to make such a payment.<\/p>\n
Anyone who receives one of these calls or messages is advised to hang up immediately and avoid sending any money or sharing personal information.<\/p>\n
Residents who believe they have been targeted by a scam can report it to the appropriate agency, including the Federal Trade Commission, the Pennsylvania Attorney General\u2019s Office or local law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Additional information about the Pennsylvania State Police is available at the agency\u2019s website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Pennsylvania State Police are warning Berks County residents about a scam in which callers falsely claim to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":245871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":["post-245870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}