LEE COUNTY, Fla. — At one point in your life, you probably have received a scam text, email or phone call. The Lee County Sheriff's Office says the number of reported scams are rising in our community.
They reached out to Fox 4 Senior Reporter Kaitlin Knapp to get the word out about the startling number of scams happening, what they are and what you can look out for:
"The amount of fraud is just going through the roof, because people are falling for it," Sgt. Elliott Nees with the Economic Crimes Unit. "We investigate everything from a couple hundred dollar fraud to millions."
In 2024, 60% of the 2,401 cases -- people were scammed out of more than $10,000. Nees says in 2023, there were 2,076 reports. A year before it was at 1,588.
Now, they can get about 20 cases a day, on the high end.
Nees says a rising population has something to do with the rising number of scams, but says that's not the driving factor.
"Just last week what we worked on, the three numbers that stand out on here: $395,000, $475,000 and $158,000," Nees said. "A significant amount of money for everyday citizens."
The higher dollar amounts are from wire frauds, he said.
In one case, a title company sent someone an email and it was intercepted by a scammer. They can send you the email and it looks identical, but the bank account information is fraudulent.
"I think fraudsters are getting smarter and communication is getting easier," Nees said.
The most common scam: fraudsters are pretending t be law enforcement, telling people they missed a court date.
"For a couple thousand dollars, we will wipe it clean," Nees said a scammer will say. "They either want Bitcoin or gift cards or some form of payment like that that is untraceable."
Those calls will also look legitimate because it looks like LCSO is calling.
"I can create a phone number that is completely fake online and call you from it," Nees said.
Nees says the majority of the suspects are not in the United States, so getting your money back if it goes overseas is nearly impossible to get back.
"Once it’s gone, we have to transfer to the FBI. There’s not much we can do," he said.
But there are rare cases where they can make an arrest and get the money back.
"We have two in the last couple months that we’ve been able to get back," Nees said.
The scams impact a wide-range of people.
"A lot of our scams are older people falling for them. However, younger people buy a “get rich quick” kind of thing," Nees said. "I guarantee you a lot of people fall victim to crimes and are embarrassed to say what happened, they’re embarrassed to tell people."
So what can you do to protect your money?
Nees said check your credit for fraudulent accounts created at least once a year.
If the person on the phone says incorrect information and you correct them— that's a red flag.
Also, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.
"You’re not getting anything back for it, except heartache," Nees said.
If you think you were a victim or had a potential scammer get ahold of you, call the Lee County Sheriff's Office or report it here.
