Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) District 7 in Fountain Hills is issuing an alert to citizens about ongoing scams involving suspects posing as MCSO employees. MCSO Capt. Larry Kratzer said they received a couple of reports on Aug. 7, and an additional call Aug. 8.

“We had one female victim scammed out of $500 by a person posing as an MCSO Lieutenant, using the name of Lt. Richard O’Conner,” Kratzer said. “The other calls were to our admin assistant letting us know someone is trying to pose as a deputy with MCSO, but the scams weren’t successful.”

The incident where the female victim was scammed for $500 was reported on Monday, Aug. 7. The victim reported she received a call from a person claiming to be Lt. Richard O’Connor with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, who told her she missed jury duty and two warrants were issued for her arrest in the amount of $2,000 for the two warrants. The suspect requested she take care of the fines using “MoneyPack Cards” at a local pharmacy and that the court would reimburse her for the money. The victim then purchased multiple cards as requested in the amounts of $500 each, but only provided the information for one of the cards before she became suspicious and ended the call.

She stated she waited in line at the Fountain Hills CVS for about an hour with the suspect on the line with her. The phone number used in this incident was 480-939-7371. The person attempted to call her back over seven times until she finally blocked the number.

“We had another unknown person call our admin assistant (Monday) and share with her that a male subject who identified himself as Sgt. McPherson with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office attempting to run a similar scam. He called from 602-892-7442. No report was taken for this incident, as the victim didn’t want to do anything other than let us know and we did not have contact info for him. He did not lose any money and didn’t fall for the scam,” Kratzer said.

Deputies called both numbers. The first suspect’s 480 number only rang and sometimes went to a notification that the text box is not accepting messages. The other 602 number went to a voicemail for a person who identifies themselves as Sgt. McPherson with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and informs the caller to call 911 if it’s an emergency, attempting to mirror some MCSO voice mail greetings.

Kratzer noted MCSO does not attempt to collect fines by phone or through any mechanism.