Area police department issues warning about recent text scam

CENTERVILLE — The Centerville Police Department is issuing a scam warning about a text that says it’s a survey for the city, but the city has nothing to do with it.

Phil and Becky Buckle say they get spam messages all the time.

“We got two or three of them a while back then and we reported it,” Becky Buckle said.

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Centerville police are warning of a message being sent out to people who live in the city.

It says a survey is being conducted on issues important to Centerville residents and has a link to the said survey.

“The city did not send this out. We don’t know anything about it,” said Officer Keith Wallace is with the Centerville Police Department.

He says it is unclear if this survey is legitimate or not, and right now no one has reported any fraud to them after clicking the link, but spam texts are a growing problem.

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In 2022, the Federal Trade Commission says consumers reported losing more than $330 million in text scams.

“Scammers are very, very good at using language that convinces people that they are legit,” Wallace said. “Our recommendation is if you have any suspicion at all, don’t respond, don’t click, don’t call the numbers given in emails or texts.”

Instead, contact that organization directly using numbers that aren’t in the suspicious text.

That’s how Centerville police found out about this text going around, and that’s how Phil and Becky handle any suspicious texts.

So if you get a text like this and click on it, Centerville police say you only really need to contact them if your bank account information is compromised or someone steals from you.

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