The Jefferson Police Department has been fielding calls about different phone scams that have recently popped up.

Police Chief Mark Clouse outlines three main scams that they have been hearing about. He says the “Grandparent Scam” is when a caller claims they are law enforcement from another state and your grandchild has been in an accident or has been arrested and requests you to pay them money to help their grandchild out. Clouse notes the “IRS Scam” happens during tax filing season, when the caller claims they are from the IRS and need money to correct an error with their taxes or they will be arrested. The final one concerns the Social Security Administration, where the caller claims your Social Security number has been compromised and they need personal information to correct it.

Clouse says all three cases are scams because of the entities the caller claims to be will not actually contact you by phone. 

“Unfortunately a lot of these are virtually untraceable. It’s not like it’s somebody across town doing this to you. It’s someone in another country, someone in another state, and their computer trails make them look like they’re in 14 other places. We really can’t even begin to investigate all of these. But it’s important that you still report those to me.”

Clouse points out they try to educate the public of when scams are happening and give information out of how to avoid falling victim to them. The non-emergency number for the police department to report a scam is 515-386-2136.