Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat
OKLAHOMA CITY — Scammers are reaping big bucks from Oklahoma County residents and even targeted one of the Legislature’s two principal leaders.
During a news conference last week at the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office here, Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat and Sheriff Tommie Johnson III discussed how scams are affecting county residents.
Johnson said his office has experienced an uptick in recent weeks in the number of people in Oklahoma County who have been victims of this type of fraud.
“These scams are devious and take advantage of everyday, ordinary citizens,” he said.
The frauds “are continuing to advance and become harder to spot,” Johnson said. “We have heard from attorneys, doctors and dozens of other individuals who have succumbed to this type of law enforcement scam and turn over credit card or bank account information, losing hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars.”
Treat, R-Oklahoma City, told about a fraudulent call he received from a scammer who claimed Treat missed a court date and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The Senate leader indicated “the guy was extremely convincing” and even “dropped the name of one of our deputies,” said Aaron Brilbeck, public information officer for the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Office.
The caller “had my name, home address, and identified a real Oklahoma County judge who I supposedly missed a hearing in front of,” Treat said.
The individual said the warrant would be withdrawn if Treat made a payment, Brilbeck added. But a “red flag went up” when the caller said he had met with Treat and Treat had signed a document vowing that he would appear in court on a specific date.
Treat could recall no such incident. So he informed the caller that the sheriff “is a friend of mine” and that he’d call Johnson to get the matter cleared up. The caller quickly hung up.
“I am fortunate to have the luxury of knowing Sheriff Johnson as a personal friend,” Treat said. “Not everyone is so lucky. If anyone else would have received the call I did, it wouldn’t have been out of the realm of possibility to become a victim of a scam.”
Brilbeck said, “The reason these calls are so frequent, and the callers are so sophisticated, is because they work. These folks are convincing, which is why they’re successful.”
If you make, say, 400 calls a day, and just one or two are successful, “you’re getting paid $2,000 to $4,000 on each one,” Brilbeck said. “That’s $4,000 to $8,000 in a day.”