CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Nueces County Sheriff's Office is working hard to battle fraud. They have now made it easier to report online/phone scams using their app.
Sheriff John Hooper showed 3NEWS the latest scam text he received on his phone.
"I got a scam on my sheriff phone [of] somebody claiming that the zip code was wrong and a package couldn’t be delivered until I clicked on an actionable link and came across with some information," he said.
This kind of scam message is becoming more prevalent, especially in the holiday season.
The Federal Trade Commission reports that last year people lost $10 billion dollars to scam artists, a billion more than in 2022.
No one expects those numbers to go down this year, that’s why the Sheriff decided to add a fraud alert on the department’s app.
"You can get in the Sheriff’s app and report a scam attempt that was sent to you and you can give us all of the details how they tried to get to you," Hooper said.
Those reports go to detectives like James Rackley and Cameron Coffman. The two have heard and seen it all over the years.
Their captain, Corando Garza, told 3NEWS that if they can’t get to the bottom of the scam they have plenty of resources to help them out.
"We can contact the FBI, we can contact HSI to help with other resources as well as DPS," he said. "Also, depending on the severity of the scam that was done you know we can bring in other partners to help out."
The first step in getting that help is now in the palm of your hand, and with a few clicks your case could be in the hands of deputies more quickly.