AST released an advisory after receiving reports of a “telephonic phone scam” targeting Alaskans. The advisory was posted on the trooper dispatch on Tuesday.

According to the posting, troopers found in their investigation that numerous individuals have called in to AST seeing clarification of phone calls they have been receiving where the caller identifies themselves as troopers and state that “the person called, missed a court appearance, and/or has a warrant.” After making this spurious claim, the caller than talks their victim into purchasing prepaid debit cards, most frequently “green dot” cards. 

After their scam’s victims purchase multiple prepaid  cards, and deposit large amounts of funds on them, they have the victim give them the access number over the phone so that the thieves can access the funds deposited on the cards.

Troopers say that the scammers provide a phone number “to which people can call that has an elaborate voicemail identifying themselves as the Alaskan State Troopers with numbered options to press which are then forwarded to the suspects.”

Troopers would like to advise the public that they do not accept payment at any time “except for records requests, background checks, and similar services,” and then only do so in person.

AST advises that anyone who is contacted by troopers, who in turn request payment in any form, to call your local trooper post immediately before processing any form of payment.

The AST public announcement can be seen on their Facebook page.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

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