Phone scam poses as police benefactor

MAT-SU — Palmer police are warning residents to beware of telephone scammers claiming to represent the city’s police department.

A phone solicitor called a local resident the evening of Oct. 9 attempting to collect money to benefit the Palmer Police and Sheriff’s Association, Palmer Police Department Det. Kelly Turney said. The caller said he was collecting money for the agency’s Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program.

There is no such organization and while some officers on the Palmer force have DARE training, there isn’t a dedicated DARE enforcement officer assigned to area schools, Turney said.

“We would never, ever call citizens to ask them for money for a program,” he said. “A lot of people see Internet scams and mail scams, and some folks are comfortable talking on the phone. [Giving personal information over the telephone] is just not a good idea.”

The Wasilla Police Department also is not soliciting for any of its programs, Chief Angela Long said.

“None of the police agencies do, but there are some nonprofit organizations [that benefit law enforcement] that have fundraisers,” she said.

That someone would use trusted agencies like law enforcement or youth programs like DARE to scam residents is not surprising, but “pretty despicable,” Long said.

“There’s really no level of depravity [scammers won’t sink to],” Turney said. “You saw a lot of this after 9/11 too — people representing themselves as representing the families [of terror attack victims]. It happens. Fortunately, it doesn’t happen all that regularly here.”

In the case of the Palmer scam attempt, the person who reported the call happened to have a corrections officer in the family and knew to not give personal information and to report the incident, Turney said.

Anyone in Palmer receiving a call similar to the one reported Tuesday is encourage to contact police at 745-4811.