The Hermiston Police Department is warning the community about another scam circulating.
The department received a call on Wednesday from a citizen who received a scam phone call. The call information indicated the call originated from the Hermiston Police Department’s general phone number, 541-567-5519. The person identified himself as one of HPD’s police captains.
The potential victim, however, knew the captain personally and realized the caller was a fraudster impersonating the HPD captain and called him out causing the caller to hang up.
HPD is advising citizens to be aware that bad actors are able to clone known phone numbers and will often present themselves as respectable and well known community members.
To help protect yourself from being a victim of these scams, HPD is offering the following information:
- If you receive a call from HPD, feel free to verify the call is legitimate. You can tell the officer you would like to hang up and call him or her back on the main line, 541-567-5519, option 1. Your call will then be routed back to the officer.
- Though HPD often reaches out to people via phone calls, the department (and all other law enforcement agencies) will never call and ask to pay your way out of warrants, pending arrests, jury duty, etc., by providing credit/debit card or online payment information over the phone.
- Law enforcement agencies will never ask you to buy gift cards, Amazon cards, or any other payment cards and provide us with the redeem codes for any reason.
- Law enforcement agencies in our area never solicit donations for police equipment, K-9 program support, or other monetary donations by phone call, text, email, etc.
If you received such a call – hang up, then contact the dispatch center by dialing the direct line, 541-567-5519, option 1, and report the fraudulent call.
