Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office Warning of Scam

Dubuque County authorities are warning residents of a scam.

The Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office says scammers are obtaining information about arrested persons – likely using scraper bots and monitoring the Sheriff’s Office’s P2C recent arrests. The scammers then demand bond money from the arrested person’s family and are coercing them to wire money into pass-through accounts. 

Dubuque County Sheriff Joe Kennedy wants residents to know that the Sheriff’s Office will never call you and demand bond money for inmates. He also says bonds paid at the Dubuque County Jail are only accepted in person and as cash. Bond may also be paid in person at the Dubuque County Courthouse. The Sheriff’s Office does not accept gift cards, checks, bitcoin, etc., as forms of payment.

Sheriff Kennedy says anyone asking you to send money or gift card information anywhere else is attempting to scam you. 

Also a note from Sheriff Kennedy – when you are at a place of business initiating one of these transactions and an employee of that business informs you that you are being scammed, please listen to them. Although these occurrences may be new to you, he says the employees of these businesses are seeing this happen to people daily and have a good idea of the signs that these crimes are occurring.