[OPLINLIST] My Saturday afternoon

[Chad Neeper]

I apologize for this being OT, but I'm frustrated in that there is nothing
I can do other than to relate this experience in the hope that it will help
someone else.


Six or seven years ago when my wife and I moved out of our first house, we
kept the house and subsequently rented it to my sister and family. Both
houses are in Delaware County.

Saturday around 5:00pm, my sister called us to say they had just received a
call on their house phone from Delaware County Sheriff's Deputy Brian
Evans. He was trying to get in touch with my wife ASAP. While I don't know
the exact details of that first call, my brother-in-law took down his name
and phone number and passed it to my wife and myself. I think my
brother-in-law may have been told that my wife was an emergency contact and
that it was urgent. We immediately knew several reasons why we might get an
urgent call like that and which could explain why he was calling. So with
her standing next to me, I quickly called Deputy Evans on my wife's behalf
to find out what he wanted.

When he answered the phone, I told him we received his urgent message and
that I was the husband of the person he was trying to get in touch with. I
asked him why he was calling, but he said he could only speak with her
directly and could only talk to me with her consent. He said I could put
her on the phone and she could give him permission to speak to me on her
behalf, but if I was not going to let him speak with her directly, then he
would have to "terminate the call." I told him that I understood and asked
if he could at least confirm if this is an emergency situation. He
hesitated very slightly and then said something to the effect of me
interfering with a civil warrant and that if I didn't want her to be pulled
over some time and arrested, it could be considered an emergency. In
return, I simply told him that I couldn't confirm he was who he said he was
and asked how I could confirm that. I was already intending to call the
County Sheriff at that point to confirm him anyway, but he straight-up told
me that I should call the Delaware County Sheriff Office's Civil Warrants
Processing Unit (which he confirmed twice as I wrote it down) and ask for
Bryan (which he spelled for me) Evans and that they would forward my call
to him. Then, as I clearly was not going to capitulate, he then abruptly
terminated the call as promised.

Deputy Evans was very convincing and nearly flawless in his manipulation.

He maintained urgency and moderate, steady pressure. He sounded mildly
irritated that I would not permit him to speak with his intended contact,
yet remained professional throughout. (Exactly as I would have expected
from a Delaware County Sheriff's Deputy in a similar situation.) There were
perhaps two very minor irregularities/oddities in the story. However, I
could very legitimately explain them away given any number of realistic
circumstances. I can even plausibly explain away the reason for the phone
call to our old address. Up until the moment I called the Sheriff's Office
to find out if the guy was legit, I was pretty thoroughly convinced that he
was actually a Delaware County Sheriff's Deputy trying to locate my wife to
issue a legal warrant of some kind. (Our assumption was identity theft
since we've had a slight brush against her before with that.)

Sheriff's Deputy or not, he called us; we didn't call him. Trust but verify
is the rule. He gets nowhere until I verify him. If it turns out that I've
temporarily prevented a law enforcement officer from doing his job and have
irritated him in the process...so be it. I'll apologize. As it turns out, I
won't be apologizing.


My dad found this link to a similar report recently in Butler County:
http://triblive.com/news/butler/8178543-74/sheriff-deputy-slupe#axzz3Zh0wH0Te



This "jury duty" scam is probably where ours was headed too, but it never
got that far. I couldn't get him to tell me what he was after. While there
may not be a real Deputy Bryan (or Brian) Evans in Butler County, there IS
in Delaware, which lends more credibility to that particular choice of name.

At any rate, this appears to be a thing that's happening in the last few
weeks here in Ohio, so I thought I'd pass our experience along. If it helps
just one person on this list, then I'll consider this time well spent...and
if "Deputy Bryan Evans" happens to call, feel free to irritate him in any
way you can.


Chad

______________________________
*Chad Neeper*
Senior Systems Engineer

*Level 9 Networks*
740-548-8070 (voice)
866-214-6607 (fax)

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