CHESAPEAKE, Va. — A Chesapeake woman said she handed over $15,000 to scammers last summer.
It was part of a scam 13News Now told you about in July-- people pretending to be from the Chesapeake Sheriff's Office tricking their way into your wallet.
At the time, Undersheriff David Rosado said 40 people called in a single day to report the scam. Two ultimately paid the scammers what they wanted.
Now, one of those victims is coming forward to tell her side of the story.
The woman, who lives in Chesapeake, said she knows how it sounds—falling for a scam that cost her $15,000.
"It’s a wild story. If I hadn’t lived it, I would’ve thought there’s no way," she said Wednesday morning.
But she calls the whole situation incredibly believable.
She said she was spending time with her teenaged daughter over the summer, when she got the call.
"It read Chesapeake Sheriff’s Department," she recalls.
On the other end, a man she thought was a deputy with a legitimate badge number.
"He said are you in a safe place to talk?" she said. "This is about you and your bench warrants that are out and we need to sort this out."
The man on the line told her she was a key witness in a legal matter that she hadn’t shown up to and threatened to arrest her if she broke the 'federal gag order.'
The woman said she had reason to believe him. She'd been bedridden from surgery for two months when the letter was supposedly delivered, so she easily could've missed it.
"When they start speaking ‘felony’ and that ‘you’ll be a felon, convicted felon for the rest of your life’, the fear that goes through you, for me that day, it was insurmountable."
The number reflected the same one listed for the Chesapeake City Jail. When she hung up and called the number back, like she’d heard you were supposed to, it directed her back to the scammer. She said he also had extremely personal information about her, which further panicked her to do what the scammer asked.
What he said next scared her, not only for her sake, but for the sake of her teenaged daughter.
"We will come to your home with a squad car, we will put you in handcuffs and we will put you in a jail cell," she remembers. "I was in pure adrenaline, fight or flight mode."
She tells 13News Now, they'd recently been through a family crisis and she didn't want her daughter to be retraumatized.
To avoid arrest, the scammer offered a solution.
"I would have to pay a bond that would release the bench warrant," she said.
A bond for $15,000.
So, she went to her bank and took out a loan under what she describes as "visible duress," with the scammer still on the phone.
"I’m thinking I’m following police instruction to the letter of the law."
She said she met a man right outside of a bail bondsman’s office, thinking he worked there, and handed over the money, afraid of what would happen if she didn’t. She received a handwritten receipt. Almost identical to the one given to another victim in the same location the next day, according to the Sheriff's Office back in July.
That’s when she said she called the Sheriff’s Office again to confirm she was out of trouble.
"The person on the phone said, ‘Oh, this is the 6th or 7th person that’s called today. Honey, I want to tell you this is a scam.’"
She said now she and her family are saddled with paying back the loan, hoping it will be forgiven under the circumstances. She said she believes there is a legal avenue to possibly make that happen.
The victim has filed a police report and spoken to the FBI in the hopes they can stop these scammers.
She encourages people to listen to their gut and know your rights.
"We have more rights than I thought that I did that day. I had the right to hang the phone up and I had the right to just get in the car and drive to the Sheriff's Office," she said. "You have the right to question things more than I did that day and not just follow blindly."
She also reminds people you don't know exactly what you'd do until it actually happens to you.
"'Why didn't you hang up?' Because I was told if I hung up, there would be a squad car at my doorstep within 15 minutes. 'Why didn't you drive somewhere?' They told me I was being followed. 'Why didn't you call your husband?' Because I was told my phone was pinged."
She said ultimately, she doesn't want anyone else to go through this.
"I felt really compelled to tell this story because I never want this to happen to anybody else," the woman said.
The Chesapeake Sheriff’s Office tells me they’re still getting calls from people reporting a similar scam.
It’s important to reinforce the Sheriff’s Office will never ask for money and won’t give you a warning before being arrested.
If you get one of these scam phone calls, call the Chesapeake Police Department at 757-382-6161.