The Denton County Sheriff's Office warned residents Thursday about a fake website made to look like its own, saying scammers are using it to frighten people over warrants that do not exist.
The bogus site, dentoncountysheriff.org, invites visitors to type in their name to check for active warrants, according to the sheriff's social media post as reported by the Cross Timbers Gazette. The typical pattern, deputies said, starts with a phone call: the scammer contacts a victim, sends them to the website and walks them through searching for themselves.
The sheriff's office said the page closely copies the look of its real site, so people can easily mistake it for a genuine government page. The phone numbers posted on it are not Denton County numbers.
The genuine sheriff's office pages sit within the county's own website, and every Denton County government site uses a web address ending in ".gov," not ".org," the office said. It urged people to read a web address carefully before clicking a link or typing in personal details.
"Law enforcement will never call to inform you that you have a warrant for your arrest and instruct you to verify it through a suspicious website or demand immediate action," the sheriff's office said in its warning, adding that scammers count on fear and urgency.
