It has been brought to our attention that Scammers are spoofing Penn Township Police Department’s phone number “717-637-8751” in an attempt to legitimize a recent scam.

Spoofing is a fraudulent or malicious practice in which communication is sent from an unknown source disguised as a source known to the receiver.

The scam involves the scammer contacting the victim via text message or leaving a voice mail. Once the victim contacts the scammers, they direct the victim to withdraw money from their bank account(s) and deposit the funds into a BitCoin ATM to keep their money “safe” from “Scammers”. The Scammer provides the victim instructions on how to act and even what to tell bank tellers to prevent them from growing suspicious of large withdraws of money.  

The scammers attempt to gain your social security number and date of birth so that information can be used to further future scams.

If someone calls you claiming to be a police department, hang up, check for the real phone number and call that police department. Scammers are creative and will sometimes provide you relevant information to legitimize themselves to gain your trust. Remember: If you don’t know whose calling you, don’t answer the phone. Make them leave a message and decide whether or not to call them back.