BATH

After investigating four cases of fraud in the last week, the Sagadahoc County Sheriff ’s Department is warning residents to be on guard.

It is a crime that is not going away, Detective Adam Temple said Monday, and seems to be getting more prevalent.

Each of the victims in the four cases he saw last week wanted to get the word out to others before it happens to them, he said.

One of those cases involved mortgage fraud, Temple said.

A 33-year-old woman from West Bath received paperwork from a company that claimed it could help her get out of a foreclosure situation, and had her mortgage and other information, such as the name of the previous owner of the house and the homeowners’ insurance company and policy number.

Asked how a normal person would be able to tell the paperwork she received wasn’t legitimate, “I don’t think the normal person would be able to tell,” Temple said.

The only reason the woman was alerted was when she met with a representative from her mortgage company in court for mediation and excitedly showed him the paperwork and told him she’d made a $1,900 payment. The representative looked at the paperwork, however, and said it wasn’t real.

Temple said it took a professional to recognize the scam.

He advised others: Before handing over a money to an entity promising to help with a foreclosure, check with the mortgage company, which would have to approve such facilitating of payments.

Mortgage companies are aware this is happening, Temple said, and there are legitimate companies that do help people facing foreclosure.

Temple also received a complaint from a 77-year-old woman who had wired $1,500 to a man who claimed to be her son and said he had been in an accident and needed the money.

On her way home from wiring the money, Temple said the woman finally got in touch with her son, who had no idea what she was talking about.

Temple said while he was on the phone with the woman, the man called back and asked for another $1,500.

The caller probably makes as many as 100 calls in a day, usually targeting the elderly, and all it takes is one person to believe the caller is their son or daughter because they sound similar on the phone and say they are in trouble, Temple said.

These scam artists use a method known as spoofing, Temple said, in which a website service allows them to make fake names pop up on a Caller ID.

All four of last week’s reported frauds appeared to originate from California.

There were two unsuccessful fraud attempts reported last week involving placing ads.

A 22-year-old Bowdoin woman was trying to sell a cat for $150 and got a response from someone in California. After emailing back and forth, this person sent her a bogus check for $2,200 to cover the cost of the cat and for shipping.

The same thing happened to a 13-year-old boy, who came into the sheriff ’s department with his grandmother last week. He’d been trying to sell his dirt bike on Craigslist. Someone had contacted him and sent a check for more than the asking price, again with the hope the bike would be shipped before the seller finds out the check is bad.

dmoore@timesrecord.com

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