LEON COUNTY, Fla. (WTXL) — The Florida Department of Health in Leon County is reminding residents to stay vigilant after they received a report about a call where a scammer urged a resident and her husband to come outside to get tested for coronavirus.
"I was told this morning that a caller to our Leon County Covid-19 call center reported that someone called her home [Thursday] and said they needed to come out to her home and test her and her husband," said Pamela Saulsby, a spokeswoman for the department, in an email. "This is something we would not do."
She said that the woman disconnected the call by hanging up her phone but wasn't sure if the woman contacted authorities.
National organizations like the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have also been warning the public of fraud, scams, and other crime related to the COVID-19 pandemic as scammers try to use the outbreak to steal money, personal information, and more.
The Department of Justice’s Criminal Division has also established a National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline to report COVID-19 fraud.
You can report suspicious coronavirus-related scams like these the National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 1-866-720-5721 or e-mail at disaster@leo.gov.
For more from the FCC about coronavirus-related scams, click here.
