I feel like a completely gullible idiot, but I have to tell what happened to me on Friday, just so others don’t fall prey to the same scammers. I was in a planning meeting while my students were in “specials” when the school secretary called our meeting room and told me the local sheriff’s department was on the phone and that I needed to come take the call right away. My first thought was that the call would be about one of my students. I’d already had child protective services drop in on us earlier in the week to interview one of my students, and another student whose parents are in the middle of a very ugly divorce and decided to play out their courtroom drama in my classroom a few days ago when they dropped their child off the first day of school.
I was completely taken aback when I picked up the phone and discovered it was I who was under scrutiny. The man identified himself as a representative from the sheriff’s department, told me his name, and asked if I was aware there were 2 warrants issued for ME! He said that I had been summoned for jury duty on a previous date and that, because I had failed to appear in court and failed to respond to any of their attempts to contact me, a judge had issued one “FTA” warrant and a second for contempt of court. I informed him that this was the first I was hearing about any jury duty and that I had always served before when summoned. He asked if I’d had any trouble receiving my mail, and I replied none that I aware. However, in the back of my mind, I was thinking about the fact that I moved just a little over a year ago, so maybe it was plausible that their attempts to contact me had gone awry somehow. I was also thinking that this had to be a case of mistaken identity, because ever since I got married, I’ve had to distinguish my identity from a lot of other people who now have the same name as I do. It is very common for me to have to give my middle name or birth date in public places, such as the library, doctor’s office, even the hair salon. My married last name is apparently much more common than my maiden name.
He proceeded to tell me that I had to come down to the sheriff’s office right then to rectify the situation. I explained that not only did I not have a car at my disposal (my son had dropped me off at work that morning because he needed the car later in the day), I had a classroom full of children that I could not leave, but he was having none of it. I had to come, and he wanted my cell phone number so that he could call me back in three minutes and that I had to stay on the line with him in transit, as if he didn’t trust me.
By this time, I was really rattled, as you might imagine, and I wasn’t thinking too clearly, but I went to the front office secretaries and told them my situation. They immediately started making arrangements for someone to take over my class. I practically ran back to my classroom to get my purse and especially my cell phone, because I had to call my husband to try to arrange transportation before this nasty man called back.
To make matters more interesting, when I called my husband to tell him what was going on and ask him to come get me, he informed me he couldn’t because our second car’s brakes had failed on him while he was driving earlier that morning, and he had taken it in to the mechanic’s to be fixed. I was about fit to be tied at that point! I knew the sheriff’s office would never believe this and imagined they would send an officer out to the school to pick me up.
Long story short, our sweet secretaries (God bless them!) got permission for one of them to drive me to where my son had our other car so I could get it. In the meantime, I was wondering why this guy hadn’t called me back like he had said he would. I had my cell phone in my hand the whole time.
Now for those of you skeptics who think you would have known better than I that something was fishy at this point, maybe so. In my defense, however, this guy had his spiel down well. He knew details and had answers to all of my questions. Plus, I have lived in several different states now, and I know that each state does things its own way, but the state I live in at the moment is particularly weird. It would not be the first time I would wonder at (and privately curse) the stupidity of the government and the way things are run, so the fact that this was happening was not as far-fetched as it maybe should have seemed. I also have to say that I am unacquainted with these kinds of matters and don’t know how they’re handled. I mean, they really had the WRONG girl. I’m so squeaky clean, I’m boring.
Anyhow, to try to make this long story as little shorter. I got down to the sheriff’s office at the address he had given me. I gave the name of the man I was supposed to see at the front desk, and he seemed perplexed. He asked why I was there, and I told him, and he gave me instructions on how to find the magistrate’s office. I went there and, fortunately, met with a very kind lady. She asked me several questions, looked up some information on her computer, made a phone call to someone who handles such matters, and then informed me I had been scammed. Actually, the person she called said, “I can’t believe she [meaning me] made it all the way here. Usually before this point, the guy has their credit card number and has charged a couple of thousand dollars, and there’s no way they can get it back.” The woman apologized to me, told me that there were 13 other people in the state with my name with outstanding warrants, but reassure me that I was not one of them. I had been SCAMMED.
I, of course, responded by bursting into tears, releasing the surmounting stress. I will never know why the guy didn’t call me back like he said he would. I didn’t know if there was something about our conversation that put him off (he seemed a bit taken aback that I didn’t have a car at my disposal) or if I was so shaken up by that point that I gave him the wrong phone number, but I thank God for His protection. According to the REAL sheriff’s representative, when the scammer has his victim good and rattled, he usually calls the victim back, saying that if they don’t want to have to come in to the station, they can just pay the fine over the phone with their credit card. I guess most people do. That’s why they don’t ever make it all the way to the sheriff’s department. I’m still out almost a $1000 for the brake repair, but at least it’s not an additional $2000 to a crook with way too much chutzpah.