READING, Pa. – Berks County officials are warning residents about an increase in scams across the county, saying fraud attempts are becoming more frequent and increasingly severe.<\/p>\n
County leadership came together Tuesday to raise awareness about the growing problem, to explain how to identify scams and to offer advice on what to do if someone becomes a victim.<\/p>\n
According to county officials, scams and fraud are affecting all corners of Berks County in some form nearly every day.<\/p>\n
Those schemes include mailed arrest warrants, voicemails from scammers impersonating sheriff’s deputies and fraudulent emails targeting county vendors.<\/p>\n
District Attorney John Adams said scammers continue to steal thousands of dollars from victims, often convincing them to buy gift cards or send money through cryptocurrency machines.<\/p>\n
Once the money is sent, recovering it can be extremely difficult.<\/p>\n
“It’s almost impossible to identify who the scammers are,” Adams said.<\/p>\n
Scams can take many forms, including romance scams, fake technical support calls, fraudulent social media posts and artificial intelligence impersonating family members.<\/p>\n
Despite the different approaches, Adams said they often share one common goal: getting victims to hand over money.<\/p>\n
“If someone asked for money, hang up,” Adams warned.<\/p>\n
Officials urge residents to think twice before responding to unexpected calls, messages or requests for money.<\/p>\n
They also recommend independently contacting the person or organization involved by using a verified phone number before sharing personal information or sending money.<\/p>\n
\nCopyright 2026 Maranatha Broadcasting Co., Inc.. All Rights Reserved.\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Berks County officials are warning residents about an increase in scams across the county, saying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,131784,131782,10716,43072,53412,1856,131781,131783,128,130,129,663],"class_list":["post-325221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-consumer-advice","tag-cryptocurrency-scam","tag-fraud","tag-gift-card-scam","tag-impersonation","tag-law-enforcement","tag-money-theft","tag-public-warning","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-scam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325221","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=325221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}