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Gates County Sheriff Ray Campbell has been made aware of a new scam that has already affected local citizens.

The scammer is using a program to make a phone call display the phone number for the Gates County Sheriff’s Office.

“When you answer, they are identifying themselves as deputies with our office. They even go as far as to use the names of our actual deputies,” Campbell said. “After identifying themselves, they may say that you have a warrant for arrest and must pay online to prevent from being arrested.”

Campbell stressed that the Gates County Sheriff’s Office of individual deputies will never contact a person and ask them to pay online to make a warrant go away.

“We will never call and ask for money under any circumstance,” he noted.

Campbell said if something does not seem right to please contact his office to verify the legitimacy of the call.

“You can always hang up [on the scammer] and call us directly to make sure if you have fears of the legitimacy of the call,” he said.

If you’ve received any of these calls and have suffered some sort of financial loss, Campbell said to call the Sheriff’s Office at (252)-357-0210.