By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The Buchanan County Sheriff's Department is continually looking to new technology to keep the community safe from con artists looking to steal money through scams.
Sheriff Bill Puett says with the frequency of scams and the rise of artificial intelligence, it's important to verify information if you receive a call that you're unsure about.
"When I say verify, go and verify the number, if I call you and say hey can I have your social security number and your date of birth and your credit card and your this and your that call me back at this number, that's kind of silly because I'm giving you the number to call me right back at," Puett tells KFEQ News. "So, make sure that you check and call the official number for the law enforcement entity or the court or whatever."
Puett says his department is currently working on putting out a phone app as well that will help notify the public of information.
Puett says the phone app would allow a lot of information about the department to be available to citizens right on their phones.
"And it would also do push notifications about scams, and it will tie in with our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, it will tie in with all those things," Puett explains. "There's also some educational stuff on there, so there will be some opioid education information and just a variety of things, so it's kind of in its infancy and we're trying to get that up and running."
Puett says having more ways to get information out to people means the quicker the department can be to protect residents in Buchanan County.
"Whether it's Facebook or this app or whatever, there's certain news cycles, you guys are always great about when we put a release out about the scam, but it's got to wait until the next news cycle and somebody's got to catch the news, if they don't catch the news well then they might be a day or two behind," Puett says.
Puett says a push notification going out notifying the community of a scam would be something that could help the community in being aware of things affecting the community.
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