08/30/2026
This just now happened!🥺❤️
BUSINESS OWNERS:
PLEASE TALK TO YOUR EMPLOYEES ABOUT THIS SCAM!
I’m sharing this because it happened at Paradise Ice Cream Parlor tonight, and this is actually the SECOND time we’ve been targeted by this same scam in the last couple years.
Someone calls the business pretending to be a Clay County, Missouri Sheriff’s deputy. They sound legitimate. They know information about the business and even know personal information about the employee they are speaking to.
Then they tell the employee DO NOT HANG UP.
They create a situation that sounds urgent and serious and convince the employee that they need to take the money from the register, leave the business, go to Dollar General or another store and purchase gift cards with the cash.
The entire time, they keep the employee on the phone and make them believe that if they hang up, don’t follow the instructions, or contact someone else, they or someone else will be in trouble. And yes people fall for it. People of all ages. It is very scary and traumatic for them.
These scammers are VERY smooth and convincing, especially when they catch an employee off guard who believes they are speaking with law enforcement.
Thankfully, today we realized what was happening while it was happening, and I was able to intercept the scam via text before we lost the money.
The last time this happened to us, we weren’t so lucky. But either way it is just such a scary and traumatic situation for anyone to be in and I don’t want this to happen to anyone else!
So PLEASE, if you own a business, talk to every one of your employees about this.
No police officer, government agency, owner, manager, utility company, or legitimate business is going to call and tell you to empty the register and buy gift cards.
Our employees now know: NO ONE takes money out of our register based on instructions from someone on the phone. EVER. Hang up and let us know.
I’m posting this because if they’re calling our little businesses in Paradise, they’re calling yours too.
Please share this! Let’s prevent this from happening again if we can! Good will overcome the evil!❤️🥺 
