Muskogee County sheriff warns of possible phone scam

October 09, 2008 11:12 pm

— Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson issued a warning Thursday about a phone scam in which donations are being sought.
One of his dispatchers, who also is a reserve officer, Andrea Guadanana, was at her mother’s home Thursday and got a suspicious call. When a man who said he was from the U.S. Sheriff’s Department of Oklahoma called for a donation, her mother handed her the phone.
She said he told her the sheriff’s office didn’t have money to buy bulletproof vests, so they had to buy their own.
“I asked him if he was talking about the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office, where I worked,” she said. “He disconnected.”
Pearson said there is no U.S. Sheriff’s Department of Oklahoma.
“All fundraisers are through the mail and no fundraiser through the mail is from this office unless the public has been given advance notice through the newspaper,” Pearson said.
“We don’t do fundraisers over the phone.”