JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Rhonda Pierce, 68, uses a walker to get around.
Pierce has been living at Cathedral Townhouse for six years and is among a growing number of people who have received suspicious calls from scammers.
“It’s a scary situation. It never happened to me before,” Pierce said.
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That’s until two men posing as agents with the FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration came knocking on her door, so she let them inside.
“They were police officers. They had badges around their necks and got up the elevator, so I figured they had to been real,” explained Pierce.
In an incident report we obtained from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, Pierce told police the men claimed she rented a car and left it in Texas and that there was blood and $150,000 dollars in it.
“One was even snapping his holster. Yes, I took it very seriously,” Pierce added.
Pierce said the men put her in handcuffs after she refused to give them her personal information.
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“I backed off and said, 'This is a joke,' and one of the officers said, 'I’ll show you a joke,' so he made me stand up, flipped me around and put handcuffs on me.”
Pierce says shortly after that, one of the men took the handcuffs off, gave her a phone number to call and left the building.
Now she has a simple message.
“I would like for them to be caught”, Pierce said.
A JSO deputy assigned to the case told Action News Jax it is an open investigation and they are currently reviewing surveillance video from Cathedral Townhouse.
If you know about a scam like this one or any others, you can report it to the Federal Trade Commission.
The Attorney General's office also has a fraud program where you can report potential scams.
Cox Media Group
