Hamblen County Sheriff warns people of ongoing phone scams

HAMBLEN COUNTY, Tenn. (WVLT) - For the last few weeks, Sheriff Chad Mullins in Hamblen County has seen a concerning and ongoing trend of phone calls with bad intentions.

“They’re asking for $1,000 and $1,000 was the last one, and we had people get green dot cards and visa cards sent to them,” said Mullins.

According to the sheriff, scammers are spoofing their phone numbers to look like an 856 or 423 area code and calling people in Hamblen County pretending to be with the sheriff’s office.

The scammers ask people to send them money or else they’d face jail time.

While Mullins encourages people to immediately hang up, he said at least eight people have fallen victim to this scam which has cost them more than $1,000.

“There’s nothing you can do, a lot has been traced back to Jamaica or the UK and there’s not much we can do,” said Mullins who spoke to the difficulty of investigating these crimes.

Although Mullins admittedly said it’s nearly impossible to trace and reclaim money sent in these scams, he’s hopeful more people will come forward who have fallen victim and added that several have not due to embarrassment.

Moving forward, he’s hopeful people see these warnings and take quick action against a potential scam.

“If they get one of those phone calls, just hang up the phone,” said Mullins.

The sheriff said that blocking the number is a good way to help deter these calls from happening but added that these scammers can use another number to call as well.

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