By Ana Karen Perez Guzman
aperez-guzman@maplevalleyreporter.com

Imagine opening an email that says the following: “Congratulations, you just won $1 million dollars! All you have to do is send some personal information and a check for $250 to India to receive your money!” Spending $250 to receive $1 million seems like a great deal, but think again.

A few weeks ago, the city of Covington Detective Theresa Schrimpsher received an email from a concerned citizen telling her she received this email. The person did the right thing by reporting the email, Schrimpsher said.

“If it’s too good to be true, it more than likely is,” Schrimpsher said.

While that wasn’t the first time a scam has happened in Covington, the actual number of scams is unknown because most of them go unreported.

“Scammers target the vulnerable, like the elderly, and they are either embarrassed to report it or scared,” Schrimpsher said.

A few weeks ago, family members called to report that their elderly family member was on their way to wire some money over to a stranger. They said their family member was told if they didn’t wire the money, the police was going to arrest them. If scammers set fear into their victims, they will more than likely not report it, Schrimpsher said.

Scams don’t always happen between people in the same town, either. Two years ago, a man from Pennsylvania contacted his local police department telling them he was scammed by someone in Covington. The Covington police department was then contacted to let them know about the scam. The Pennsylvania man had sent about $2,700 to a post office box in Covington and when he realized it was a scam, he contacted the police. Upon looking through the post office box in question, they found more than 200 people had been scammed into sending money there as well.

While many scams are done through phone calls or emails, some are done in person, where it’s easy to target the vulnerable. One of them is The Pigeon Drop Scam, which is an old scam that is making its rounds again, Schrimpsher said.

The scam involves a person coming up to a victim in a parking lot or somewhere else in public. The person shows them a large sum of money that he claims he either found or inherited and he needs victim’s help taking the money somewhere. After gaining the trust of the victim, he asks them for a ride to wherever they need to take the money. Once they arrive at the destination, they talk to another “stranger” who is actually in on the scam. The first person asks both of them for money and promises a large sum of the cash they have, as a thanks for helping them out. The “stranger” hands over money, no problem. So the victim, seeing someone else trusts the person, also hands over some money. The two people get out of the car and tell the victim to drive around the block to prove they are trustworthy. Once the victim drives back around, their money and the scammers are gone.

The Pigeon Drop Scam happened at the beginning of February to a Covington man. He didn’t fall for the scam, but unfortunately, a woman back in the summer, did. She lost about $56,000, Schrimpsher said.

There are three scams currently making their rounds in Covington and surrounding areas like Renton, Schrimpsher said. Everyone should be on the look out for a scam using the IRS, BECU and a computer virus.

In the IRS scam, someone gets a phone call from the “IRS” telling them they owe money and if he doesn’t send the money right away, he will be arrested. Many people have unfortunately fallen for this scam, Schrimpsher said. With the virus scam, a person will get a pop-up ad on her computer, stating she has a virus and if she provides credit card information, she can erase the virus. With the BECU scam, someone calls to inform there is an overdraft fee on their BECU account that needs to be paid right away, or be arrested. Again, the scammers use the law enforcement to scare someone. People tend to focus on the repercussions, like being arrested, than the fact that they don’t have an account with BECU.

It’s important people know about scams and their vulnerability to prevent them from happening, Schrimpsher said.