County resident loses $5,000 as scam victim
News | Published on February 27, 2026 at 4:30pm GMT+0000 | Author: Tucker Henderson
0By Tom Hintgen
Otter Tail County Correspondent
A resident of eastern Otter Tail County lost $5,000 as the victim of a scam, reported by county sheriff deputies on Feb. 15.
The county resident was contacted by a male using internet communications referred to as VOIP which, according to sheriff deputies, is a security risk. The county resident was told she had a warrant for her arrest, and to remedy this situation she sent $5,000 to an address in Anaheim, Calif. This was, in fact, a UPS address scam.
“The county resident was aware of the unlikelihood that her funds would be recouped,” said a sheriff deputy, “but she wanted the matter to be documented.”
Sheriff deputies said the information was sent to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, the central hub for reporting cyber-enabled crime. The agency is run by the FBI, the lead federal agency for investigating crime.
Criminals from every corner of the globe, according to law enforcement personnel, attack digital systems on a near constant basis. The Internet Crime Complaint Center emphasizes that every organization and individual needs to take smart and reasonable steps to protect their own devices and systems and to learn how to spot and avoid scams.