{"id":52586,"date":"2020-07-22T19:29:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T01:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-sheriffs-deputy-who-taught-scam-avoidance-almost-falls-for-phone-scam\/"},"modified":"2020-07-23T01:29:09","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T01:29:09","slug":"former-sheriffs-deputy-who-taught-scam-avoidance-almost-falls-for-phone-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/former-sheriffs-deputy-who-taught-scam-avoidance-almost-falls-for-phone-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Former sheriff\u2019s deputy who taught scam avoidance almost falls for phone scam"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office is warning residents that scammers posing as representatives for the Dish Network are calling residents and pretending to update receivers remotely, while asking for personal information. Residents should hang up and alert the Dish Network\u2019s fraud line.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Scammers pretending to be representatives of the Dish Network, a satellite television company, are calling people in the area and offering a fraudulent discount in exchange for a security deposit and personal information.<\/p>\n

The La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office advises residents to not provide any personal information, hang up and call local law enforcement or Dish Network\u2019s fraud hotline at (800) 333-3474.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are very professional scammers,\u201d said Dan Bender, a Durango resident and former spokesman for the Sheriff\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

He received a call last week from the scammers, who said they were updating his Dish Network receiver remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cI taught classes on how to avoid scams at the Sheriff\u2019s Office, and I personally got caught by these callers,\u201d Bender said.<\/p>\n

The caller ID on his phone said \u201cDish Network,\u201d and the callers had his name and address, Bender said. The man on the phone said his name was Mike Williams and gave Bender what he said was a four-digit employee code.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was nothing initially suspicious,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The scammers told Bender they needed to check his receiver box and told him to push buttons on his remote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe screens that he said would come up did in fact come up,\u201d Bender said. \u201cAll the directions seemed legitimate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bender has also been a Dish Network customer for many years.<\/p>\n

Because of the inconvenience, and because Bender has been a longtime customer, the scammers told him they would reduce his monthly bill by 20% for 36 months. The scammer told Bender he just needed to provide a $199 security deposit that \u201cprotected them (the \u2018company\u2019) if I decided to change to another service or upgrade to another Dish programming bundle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The scammer said he would email Bender a bill and he could pay by credit card or check. Then they started asking questions that \u201cseemed out of place,\u201d such as asking for the last four digits of his Social Security number and his credit card information, Bender said.<\/p>\n

The scammer initially asked Bender for his Dish Network customer number, which he didn\u2019t have on hand. The caller said he could also provide the last four digits of his Social Security number, which is common for companies, Bender said.<\/p>\n

The scammer put him on hold for about eight minutes, during which time Bender called the Dish Network to confirm whether the person on the other line was possibly part of a scam.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone calls and asks for personal information, don\u2019t provide it,\u201d Bender said. \u201cHang up and call the official phone number for the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Bender called the official Dish Network, it changed the code on his satellite so that the scammers could not access his account again.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have any doubts whatsoever, hang up and call the Dish Network,\u201d Bender said.<\/p>\n

The Dish Network said it has been receiving several calls every day about the scammers, and the company is aware of the issue, Bender said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor your protection, Dish Network will never call or email you asking for your personal- or Dish account-related information,\u201d said Karen Modlin, a spokeswoman for Dish Network. \u201cPlease do not give out this information.\u201d<\/p>\n

If people have additional concerns, they should also call the Sheriff\u2019s Office, he said.<\/p>\n

ehayes@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Southwest Colorado residents reminded not to provide personal information<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41745,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,1503,28,1901],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-fraud","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-sheriff"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52586"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}