According to Centre Police Chief Kirk Blankenship someone has been attempting to illegally obtain information from local businesses by calling on the phone – and posing as a member of upper management.

Investigator Randy Mayorga recently spoke with the management of a local restaurant who informed him that the male caller, posing as someone from the company’s corporate office, had for all intents and purposes sounded extremely professional – sending up no red flags.

The caller stated that the purpose of his call was simply to “briefly review some procedures and policies,” with that call going on for several minutes before it became apparent that the man was beginning to ask questions that were out of line. 

The local store manager told Investigator Mayorga the man started asking questions about how much money the restaurant generally kept on hand – how much money was generated by certain times of day – at what time deposits were made, and other things that caused the manager to stop answering the caller’s questions, including inquiries about banking. 

Information that corporate would already have on file.

When confronted about the line of questioning, the man hung up, confirming the manager’s suspicions.

Chief Blankenship urges anyone receiving any similar call to make sure that they know who they’re speaking with – and keep in mind scammers are able to “spoof” numbers, which is a term for the method of disguising the number that they’re calling from to make it appear as though they’re actually calling from any number they wish.

If in doubt – simply hang up, and call the actual number to verify that you’re speaking to the right person.