Phone, Email Scams Increasing in Naperville: Police

Naperville police have received an increasing number of email and telephone scam reports from residents during the last several weeks. 

Police said scammers are posing as representatives of Dish Network, Pay Day Loans as well as government agencies, including the city of Naperville, in attempts to collect credit card information from residents. 

The fake representatives have told residents that they owe back taxes and threaten them with arrest or larges fines if they do not provide a credit card number or banking information immediately, according to police.

Other calls have been placed from scammers posing as city of Naperville representatives using an 818 area code. 

"These calls are not from the City," police said in a release. "Calls from the City regarding utility accounts will show up on caller IDs as “City of Naperville” and almost always show the number 630-420-6059. The city does not make any calls from an 800 number requesting payments for utility services."

Scammers are also targeting senior citizens in "grandchild scams," according to police. 

"In these scams, the victim receives a phone call from a “grandchild” who claims to have been arrested and requests the victim to forward funds, usually via a money transfer company, to pay for bail and/or their fine," according to police. 

Another common scam involves callers claiming to be representatives of Microsoft and other computer companies claiming to have remotely scanned the victim’s computer.  

"The caller claims to have identified viruses on the victim’s computer and offers to sell the victim software and/or a monitoring program," police sad.