Goochland residents warned of sheriff's office arrest-payment scam calls
Several Goochland residents were told to pay to avoid arrest, but the sheriff’s office says it never demands money over the phone.
Scammers called several Goochland County residents and told them they had to pay money to avoid arrest. On July 29, 2026, the Goochland County Sheriff's Office used Instagram to warn that callers were claiming to be with the office and threatening arrest and fines if people did not pay a fee.
The pressure tactic is straightforward: the caller creates urgency, invokes law enforcement and pushes for immediate payment before the target has time to check the story. In this case, the scammers were using the sheriff’s name to make the threat sound official. The office said the clearest sign the call is fake is simple: it will never ask for money to avoid warrants, arrest or other legal process.
Goochland has seen this kind of fraud before. In January 2022, the sheriff’s office warned residents about a caller pretending to be a deputy, using a deputy’s name and rank and telling the person on the phone that fines were owed for failing to show up for jury duty. That scammer also pushed payment in gift cards, a common move in impersonation schemes because it can be harder to trace than a normal bank transfer.
The July 29 warning fits a wider pattern across the region. In York County, the York County Regional Police Department warned on the same day that scammers were posing as deputies and using phone calls, texts and emails to demand immediate payments for fake warrants, missed jury duty and civil fines. The common thread is urgency: the caller wants the victim to panic, pay quickly and avoid checking with the real agency.
For Goochland residents, the immediate response is to treat any call demanding payment to avoid arrest as suspicious. The people most likely to be caught off guard are older adults and anyone unfamiliar with caller ID spoofing, which can make a fake law-enforcement number look legitimate. Residents who get one of these calls should not send money on the spot and should verify the claim through official county channels before taking any action.
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