The owner of a local restaurant called the police after he fell for a recent scam this week. The victim evidently received a phone call at his business that suggested he needed to pay the Murfreesboro Electric Department $1,000 to keep the lights on. The caller told the man that he should go out and buy a $1,000 “Money Pack Gift Card.”

The way the scam usually works is, the victim will go out and purchase a gift card and the scam artist will then call back and convince the victim to give him the gift card account number. The money will then be taken out of the account. In this circumstance the victim took the gift card directly to the electric department.

When the victim arrived at the electric department office he was told that he had been scammed. The good news in this case... the victim did not give the con-artist his gift card account number, so the money was never lifted. Police also have a phone number now for the suspect. Of course the number could lead to a throw away phone. 

Source:

MPD Incident Report #13-21125