A glamorous influencer has tearfully revealed how scammers posing as police officers nearly scammed her out of thousands of dollars.
Isabelle Lux, A 33-year-old mother-to-be from Palm BeachFlorida, received a phone call from his local sheriff’s department on Friday.
The man on the other end of the line almost scared her into transferring the money, threatening her with a 72-hour jail sentence if she didn’t comply.
Now, he told DailyMail.com that scary degree of the scam in an effort to ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen to anyone else.
“I consider myself aware of these things and educated enough not to be fooled by anything,” she said.
“But the way this person was trained to weave a narrative, it just seemed so real.”
A glamorous influencer has tearfully revealed how scammers posing as police officers nearly tricked her into handing over thousands of dollars.
The number itself was the real number for the local sheriff’s department. “It was the first thing I checked,” he said.
“He gave me his name, a license plate number. He had all my information.”
The fake officer told Isabelle that she had failed to show up for jury duty and that as a result, there was a warrant out for her arrest.
Upon learning that she was pregnant – and that she would have had a legitimate excuse for missing jury duty – the scammer changed his tone and tried to appear sympathetic to her plight.
“He was just taking every word I said and recording it. He was using my own words against me,” she said.
Isabelle Lux, a 33-year-old expectant mother from Palm Beach, Florida, received a phone call from the local sheriff’s department on Friday.
The scammer assured her that the police department did not want to see her spend three nights in jail, which he claimed was the standard punishment for missing jury duty.
Instead, he offered another solution: pay a fine.
“It was a psychological tactic that worked on me and it made me feel really clouded because he said we could put me on hold in a jail cell or we could pay the fines; he was saying that they didn’t want to put me on hold because that wouldn’t be good for me and my baby and I thought ‘well, thanks for thinking about my baby,'” Isabelle said.
“I thought (the fine) was much more reasonable.”
Isabelle said she had always thought it “sounded ridiculous” when she heard how other people had fallen for scams, but by the time the fake police officer had delivered the joke, she was already emotional and her judgment “clouded” by stress.
“To frame this interaction, the police have never contacted me. I now know that is not how they communicate, they would not call,” he said.
“But I have no experience with the police or the judicial system at all. And this man seemed very well educated, he seemed very clear, everything seemed very legitimate.”
Isabelle’s husband arrived home just in time and, sensing a problem, called the local sheriff’s department from his own phone.
Isabelle’s husband arrived home just in time and, sensing a problem, called the local sheriff’s department from his own phone.
The couple were quickly told not to pay any money and were assured that police were not looking for Isabelle.
In fact, they said they knew scammers had found a way to mimic their phone numbers in an effort to scare ordinary Americans into handing them money.
“They said this is so widespread that they hear it every day,” Isabelle said.
“It’s scary… We were very lucky.”
Isabelle said she hoped that by sharing her own experience, others might become more vigilant about the dangers.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans reported total losses of $10 billion to scammers in 2023.
The Federal Communications Commission issued a warning about phone number spoofing in particular, revealing that scammers “often use neighbor spoofing to make it appear as if an incoming call is coming from a local number, or they spoof a number from a business or government agency that you may already know and trust.”
‘If you respond, they use fraudulent scripts to try to steal your money or valuable personal information, which can be used in fraudulent activities.’
Isabelle said she hoped that by sharing her own experience, others might become more alert to the dangers.
“I would just say that these people are very educated, at least educated in how to scam,” he said.
‘The person I spoke to was clear, the line was clear, but it was moving so fast that I couldn’t really check the facts.
“Please note that phone scams are widespread and number masking is real. Not many people know about this; I certainly didn’t.”
According to the Federal Trade Commission, Americans reported total losses of $10 billion to scammers in 2023
