THOMASTON — An unknown voice said he was holding the family hostage. If money, in the form of gift cards, wasn’t sent, the family would get hurt.

The volume of scams increases considerably during this time of year, according to Sgt. Chris Hansen, of the Thomaston Police Dept., and Thomaston and other small towns are just as vulnerable as anywhere else. In general, scammers prey on the elderly, yet anyone can be targeted. One giant red flag, said Hansen, is a request for gift cards, PayPal, or any other currency that can’t be traced.

On Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024, a relative who was an emergency contact for a family enjoying an Airbnb on Gleason Street, in Thomaston, looked at his ringing phone. The caller ID showed his brother’s name, so he answered. After hearing the threatening demand, he disconnected the call and dialed a cellphone number for someone else at the Air BnB. When he go no response, he called police.

An officer was sent to the house to determine the welfare of the family. Prior to arrival, however, the emergency contact called again to 911 to say that he’d heard from his brother, and everyone was fine and unaware of the threat.

However, scams also come in other forms.

Thomaston PD happened to post a different scam alert to their Facebook page on Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024.

Here we go again…

Another fake alert from a real institution with whom the recipient does not have an account.

The perpetrators hope that you’ll be confused and click the link. Once you do, you’re like a fly in the spider’s web as they will try to harvest your personal data, deceive you into spending money, or infect your device with malware.

Some clues in this message:

Kennebec Saving Bank is a fine institution based in Augusta, Maine. The phone number sending the message is from the 857 area code which covers the Massachusetts counties of Suffolk, Middlesex and Norfolk. That makes us go hmmmm

The clincher for us was a look at the link in the message. The last three characters (.to) indicate that this domain is in the Kingdom of Tonga. We like their creativity of throwing that (.us) in front of it to throw us off the scent, but they failed to fool our digital bloodhound.

Think twice before clicking that link, especially if you do not recognize the sender or entity from which the message claims to have come.