LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – A Tavares bondsman said his business is at the center of what appears to be a bail bonds scheme.
Chris Belton, of Belton Bail Bonds, said someone is pretending to work for them and is using their business to try and scam people.
Belton said they were originally made aware of the apparent scam a few months ago when they started getting notices from people saying they were getting text messages from a 205 area code.
However, Belton also said they recently began to hear about calls coming through on a 659-area code too.
“They were basically pretending to be us, saying this is Chris from Beltons Bail Bonds and telling them their loved one was arrested, please give me a call,” Belton said. “And then the customers would call back and then he would try to basically get them to send money whether they had bonds or not.”
Belton has kept a file of the victims that have reached out to them over the last couple of months.
“A pretty thick stack,” Belton said. “Not everybody has given them money a lot of people have figured it out but it’s been pretty substantial.”
Belton said he thinks whoever is making the calls has done their research.
“He sounds like he has either worked in the industry, or has worked for a bondsman, he knows all about the like time that the bond hearing going to be, what the bond schedule is going to be,” Belton said.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office told us they’ve received 30 reports where the alleged scammer is using Chris Belton’s name. They said 10 of those reports are from Lake County residents and out of those 10, one person sent $400 and another sent $500.
In one case the Beltons told us someone sent $6,500 through Bitcoin.
“He’s just flat out lying and he’s getting away with it, it’s very scary,” Belton said.
Both LCSO and Belton told us whoever is behind the scam is asking people to send them money via Cash App, Bitcoin or sometimes through a QR code.
“We don’t ever try to get you to send money over Cash App or Apple Pay or any of those platforms,” Belton said. “If we’re going to do a bond, it’s going to be a 10 percent, and we’ll usually do it by credit card, in the office, sometimes over the phone if they can’t make it and we usually have to have them sign for the collateral too.”
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said their advice is to hang up the phone and contact the company at a verified address from their official website so they can make sure the call is legitimate.