ANDERSON COUNTY, Tenn. — Scammers in East Tennessee are posing as police, calling people, claiming to have arrest warrants, and threatening to arrest them if they don't pay up.
As realtors, Frankie Hawn and Richard Bell answer their phone every time it rings. On Tuesday, the person on the other end of the line was someone claiming to be a detective with the Anderson County Sheriff's Office.
He said he had a warrants for their arrest for contempt of court and failure to appear. Hawn and Bell believe the scammers are getting smarter and better.
It all started with a voicemail from a "detective" or "deputy" Jones. Hawn and Bell have similar voicemails on their phones from the same person.
After listening, they decided to call the number back out of fear.
"They just sounded so real," Hawn said. "I mean there were people in the background and it sounded like they would be at the sheriff's office."
Hawn is a realtor from Kingston and said she initially got the voicemail around 6:30 p.m. and she called back around 8 p.m.
The man on the other end gave her his story about being a detective and how they were planning to arrest her.
"I said now what do I do and he said 'well you're gonna have to come in to the sheriff's office and you are going to have to bond out," Hawn explained.
He gave her warrant numbers and wouldn't let her get off the phone with him.
At first, he asked for payment in cash. After she said she didn't have the cash, he demanded she go to the store to buy gift cards to pay.
"And I said, 'Well I don't know anything about these' and he said, 'It's because you've never been arrested,'" Hawn said.
Her family met her at the store, where the scammers were waiting, and they were chased out of the parking lot after noticing people were watching them.
"And dad said 'Everybody get in the car, they're going to rob us,'" Hawn recalled.
They stopped at the sheriff's office and were safe, but after she posted on Facebook, another realtor, Richard Bell, reached out with a similar story.
The scammers knew the lingo and how to scare them.
"And they answered every question I had and it sounded very legitimate," Bell said.
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Oak Ridge Police explained the department gets these kinds of reports all the time.
"It's a scam," Captain Mike Uher said. "If you're not here at the police department and you're not bonding out of jail, don't buy a gift card, don't send cash through the mail over the phone, nothing."
"I never ever thought to call 911 or the police," Hawn said. "They need to be stopped because they're getting better every day and every time they fail they're getting better and they're gonna end up hurting somebody."
Thankfully, Hawn and Bell lost no money and are not behind bars, but they don't want other people to fall for the scam.
Oak Ridge Police said if you get a call from someone claiming to be the police, hang up and report it.