Today, the Bellevue Police Department received several calls from concerned residents regarding an apparent phone scam. The scam is familiar – someone claiming to be from the IRS calls and threatens legal action if payment isn’t made. The caller often has a foreign accent and claims that the victim owes back taxes and will be arrested if they don’t pay. The residents that received these types of calls today, however, noticed that the suspect was able to “clone” the phone number of the Bellevue Police Department’s Factoria substation – 425-452-2880, so when the suspect called the caller would see “Bellevue Police” on their caller ID.
The Bellevue Police Department would like to remind residents that our Officers will never call you to demand payment. This is a further reminder that any phone number can easily be cloned to appear on someone’s caller ID, so you should not assume that just because a number appears to be a legitimate government entity that the caller is in fact a government employee.
If you suspect that someone is impersonating a Bellevue Police officer on the phone, take the individual’s name and badge number, and then hang up and call 911 or NORCOM non-emergency at 425-577-5656.
Bellevue Beat Blog 