PCPD reminds residents of con artists

From the Ponca City Police Department

Confidence games or con-games are a form of fraud.  Someone comes up with a bad luck story and you give them cash.  You have just become a victim.  Unless you know the person or someone that observed you giving them money knows them it is very unlikely that the person could be identified, arrested or ever prosecuted.

A man entered a local business north of the hospital recently stating that he’d had a horrible wreck that morning and his wife suffered a brain bleed and had been flown to a hospital in Oklahoma City. He was holding a handwritten list of the churches in town and said he’d gotten the list from the hospital. He went on to say he had contacted each one of them and no one would help him with gas money so he could be with his wife. He left the business without any money, but waited outside for a female customer that he knew had overheard at least part of the conversation.  She initiated the conversation with him and he embellished the story some.  She ended up giving him $40.

She questioned her decision about giving him money when she replayed the conversation she had with him in her mind.  She went to the ER and found out that no patients had been flown out that day.  She had been conned out of $40.

“We are very fortunate to live in such a caring and giving community”, says Detective Division Captain Richard Evans.  “If you are approached by someone who is down on their luck, it only takes a few minutes and a phone call or two to verify the story you’ve been told.  Please take that time.  If the need is real, give if you can.  If the need is not real, you’ve just saved yourself from being a victim”, he added.