My 55+ mom almost fell for this scam while she was by herself, so I feel like I should post it here to warn others.
I was at work and my mom just so happened to be coming by my office to visit me on this particular day, which is the only reason we were able to intercept this scam. She texted me telling me she was 5 minutes away from my office. 20 minutes pass, I text back asking if she's okay. She texts back and is freaking out about being on the phone in the parking lot outside my office, that she absolutely CANNOT hang up. I'm confused, so I go out to see what's up.
Right as she parked, she got a call from a local USA phone number in our same area code. The man on the line had an authoritative voice with an accent local to our area, so it didn't raise any red flags there. He said he was an officer with metro police department, gave his full name and badge number. She was too frazzled in the moment to check this info, but I'm assuming it was probably legit; not sure where to check that either. He had her full name, address, phone number, and her email.
He explained that she was sent several mail pieces telling her that she had been called in as an expert witness in a court case. She had failed to appear in court, which led to a warrant for her arrest. He even listed dates that letters were mailed to her about appearing in court. This woman is a 55+ year old retired nanny, so I have no idea why she would be called in as an expert witness lol. But he explains that now, the police are on the way to her house to find and arrest her, and that she has to pay a fine to metro PD in order to avoid arrest. Hanging up on him would lead to immediate admission of guilt and she would be arrested and never given the chance to pay her fees and walk away.
She is losing her mind because she has no way to verify any of this but it sounds legit coming from this guy, and she had just recently moved so she thought maybe the letters got lost in the mail forwarding to her new house. He keeps saying "the police are already on their way ma'am." He gives her an address to what looks like an office building nearby the actual police station in our area (ballsy move lol) and says she can go there immediately to turn herself in or pay the fee.
I catch the tail end of this, pertaining specifically to her paying money for something, and I immediately jump into the convo and say, "Yeah, that's not happening because he's a scammer." He gets super standoffish and tells me it's illegal for me to be on the phone because it's a criminal case at that point. I told him to go ahead and send a squad car to arrest me as well and I hung up.
My mom loses her mind and is convinced the cops are going to start pulling up at any point. So to prove my point that it's a scam, I called 911 on speakerphone and explained the whole thing—a man with a badge number who claims to be a police officer is telling my mom she has to pay a fee to metro PD for not appearing in court or be arrested.