Bergen County Police Chief Saves Woman From Scam

RIDGEWOOD, NJ — Glen Rock Police Chief Dean Ackermann was in the right place at the right time last week when he was called upon by a bank employee to stop a woman from becoming a scam victim.

According to Ackermann, he was walking through the Central Business District in Glen Rock around 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday when the branch manager of Bank of America flagged him down.

The manager told him that someone was in the bank trying to withdraw "a large amount of cash under suspicious circumstances."

Police came to talk to the woman.

She told them she had gotten a call from someone claiming to be a Bank of America employee, who told her that her account was under investigation. The person directed her to take out all her money, she said.

The branch manager and police convinced her to leave the money where it was, explaining that this was a known scam. She didn't lose any money.

Others in Glen Rock haven't been as lucky.

As reported in Patch last week, on Aug. 22, a resident told police about being scammed out of $35,000.

The person told police that someone had called pretending to be from the U.S. Treasury Department.

The victim was told that he or she was subject to identity fraud, and in order to protect the money, it had to be transferred from the bank to the Treasury Department until the end of the investigation.

The person took out $25,000 from three different branches of a bank. Then, the victim placed the money into a black bag and turned it over to a man who came to the home.

Another caller convinced the victim to take out $10,000 more, which was given to two more people who showed up.

After the third call, the victim went to police.

Read more about that scam here.

Read more about similar scams here.