The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and the Granit Falls Police Department have issued a Scam Alert about scammers calling a local fast food restaurant to steal money.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating an incident that occurred on Wednesday, January 22. A Subway employee took a phone call from a man who said that he was Daniel Summers and claimed to be a corporate investigator for the company, who asked to talk to the manager. He said that he believed the owners were stealing money and that he was working with federal investigators. “Mr. Summers” directed the employee to count the cash in the store into piles of $250, then leave the store, while staying on the phone, and then purchase money packs in amounts of $250 each. If the employee did not cooperate with the payments to the “cooperate office” Summers would shut the store down and all the store employees would lose their jobs.
The employee did as the scammer demanded, drove to several stores, purchased money packs with the cash, scratched off the account numbers, then read them over the phone to the scammer. The scammer even had the employee tear up the cards along with the receipts.
The scammer took advantage of the employee by claiming to be in authority, working with law enforcement, and threatening to harm the employee’s job and fellow employee’s jobs if the scammer did not receive cooperation. Another technique to lend legitimacy was masking the phone number that showed up on caller ID to look like it is coming from the company’s corporate office. A classic case to scare the employee into action.
The Sheriff’s Office deputy conducting the investigation discovered that a similar phone scam had occurred at a store in Medford, Oregon in 2018.
If you own a small franchise business tell your employees about this scam.
The Granite Falls Police Chief, Tom Dalton, recommends that any employee who receives a call like this should hang up immediately. He also recommends that the employee call the store manager, 911, or both.
Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office:
https://www.facebook.com/SnoCoSheriff/
