A scam circulating in the region has recently landed on the steps of the Henderson County Detention Center.
According to Jailer Bruce Todd, a group representing a type of bonding agency has been contacting families of inmates.
“They’re told if they send money, then their relatives, who are inmates, could get bonded out,” Todd said.
The jailer said detention center staff have fielded five or six phone calls from families within the last three weeks.
“There are only two ways to post bond,” Todd said. “Once the court sets the bond, people can come to the jail with cash or go to the Henderson Circuit Clerk’s Office in the Henderson Judicial Center, again with cash to post bond.” Bonds can’t be paid with a credit card.
Realizing it was a scam, Todd said he called the number provided by one of the families who had been approached by the individuals soliciting money.
“I pretended to be an inmate,” he said. “I told them I understood that they could help me bond out of jail. The man who answered said, ‘Yes sir.’ I said, ‘What’s the process? I’m ready to get out of here.’
“He began to tell me, but I couldn’t really understand him due to a heavy accent,” Todd said.
“I could hear other people in the background doing the same thing like a telemarketing call center,” the jailer added.
“The man asked me how I’d heard about them, and I told him that I’d heard about his group through a family member who’d been contacted. He then asked for the phone number I’d been given, and when I read it off to him, he hung up. I called back, and they didn’t answer.”
Todd said he called both the Vanderburgh County and Daviess County Detention centers. Staff at both facilities confirmed they’d also been receiving calls from families regarding this group offering bond money.
“When the families call us and say we’ve heard we can do this, we tell them it’s a scam, and we provide them with information regarding the ways through which they can pay a bond,” he said.
What makes the situation more difficult is the scam artists have accurate information about the individual inmates, Todd said.
“I think they’re getting it off the (detention center) website. I’m assuming that’s where they’re getting it from.”
Todd said to his knowledge, none of the families reached by the fake bonding agency actually gave money to get their loved ones out of jail.
The jailer said the scam has been reported to the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office.
Sheriff’s Detective Terry Harmon said when a report like this lands on his desk the first thing investigators do is try to find something that stands out about the alleged perpetrators.
“We look at the information the suspect gives in order to develop a lead in an effort to identify the group” working the con, he said.
“It’s not much, but if the victims can get as much information as they can, it helps to zero in on the suspects,” Harmon said.
In trying to protect the public from these types of scams, Sheriff Chip Stauffer offered this advice: “Most agencies won’t make phone calls asking for money for whatever reason. If you should receive a call from a purported government agency requesting money, I would call that particular government entity to verify if the request is legitimate.”
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For more information about bonds or bonding procedures, contact the Henderson County Detention Center at 270-827-5560. People can also contact the Henderson Circuit Clerk’s Office at 270-826-2405.
