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Marion County Sheriff Ron Goemaat is warning Marion County citizens to be on the lookout for possible phone and mail scams. He says one common scam that is frequently attempted on older people is a phone call from a person posing as a grandchild. They say they’ve been in a serious accident and need money to pay the hospital bill. Goemaat advices that if you think you’re being duped, you should check with your own child about the condition of your grandchild.

If someone on the other end of the line claims to be a bank official and is asking for your personal information, Goemaat says the safest thing to do is to just hang up and call the bank’s official fraud hotline, to ensure it was them trying to contact you. Many of the scam calls come from overseas, he says, and once money is wired, it’s hard to trace.

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