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According to Fairfield Police Lt. Jim Perez, the phone scams are not only "delinquent payments" to companies like United Illuminating, but also are now claiming to be the police.
"We have a guy calling people saying he is a Lieutenant Turner from the Fairfield Police Department and that they're going to get arrested because they did not pay their tickets." Perez said.
Police believe that a similar scam directed towards businesses might be a part of the same group of con artists.
The scams generally include asking for the victim's credit card number to purchase a Green Dot credit card. Once the card number is given, they have access to the money, Perez said.
"These scams have been around for a long time but they've been particularly pervasive around here lately," Perez said.
Most of the scam seem to be focused on the senior citizens in town, Perez said. To help prevent any kind of scam on a senior citizen it's important for them to talk to their adult children and vice versa.
"A lot of these can be stopped if people just verify [with family]," Perez said.
Other scams that have been prevalent in town recently have included being contacted by Microsoft regarding their computers. A resident reported an attempted scam on Friday where a man with a heavy accent told the resident there had been attempts to gain access to his computer and that "Microsoft" could help to fix this if a payment of $249 was made.
An in-person scam was attempted on Saturday in the area of Nepas Road. A resident told police a man went door to door with a woman to talk about window cleaning. The report said that they had no documentation to verify this.
If residents are concerned about a possible scam, they should contact the Fairfield police at 203-254-4800 and file a report.
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