HOUSTON — A Houston businessman is hoping to raise awareness of a sophisticated scam that lost him thousands of dollars.
Charlie Kriegel is the CEO and owner of WinHill Advisors-Kirby, a residential real estate brokerage in Houston. Earlier this month, a regular day in his fast-paced job came to a halt when he got a call that appeared on caller ID to be from the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. The person on the other line identified themselves as a sheriff’s deputy.
"Well, sir, you've missed your court, we’re issuing a warrant for your arrest,’” Kriegel said, repeating what he was told by the caller.
Kriegel said throughout the phone call, he spoke to multiple people, with each one "transferring" him to another supposed official.
They told Kriegel they were investigating fraud with loans from the Paycheck Protection Program – or PPP.
Kriegel believed the call to be legitimate at the time because he did have a PPP loan in the past and because the callers had relevant information. They also emailed him documents that appeared legitimate.
“There was no reason to question that since I was talking to a Harris County deputy,” Kriegel said. “They had my home address, they had my business address, he gave me my PPP loan number in the full amount.”
Because of a recent change of address, Kriegel believed the entire issue could have been as simple as his supposed court date being lost in the mail. The imposters told Kriegel he would have to bond out by paying $13,500, get a new court date and then get the funds back.
Kriegel was told to use a secure terminal to send the funds.
“I thought, this makes sense,” Kriegel said. “Everything is being paid electronically now. So, I went to the terminal and deposited $13,500.”
It was then that the people on the phone told Kriegel a supposed "red flag" appeared on his account and it would require he pay a full amount of $21,500. Kriegel said he needed more time which was granted by the fake deputies with one catch.
“The one thing that did give me one red flag was the fact that he said, ‘you have a gag order not to talk to anybody about this,’” Kriegel told KHOU 11 News.
That’s when Kriegel hung up and called the real Harris County Sheriff's Office.
“And they said, ‘Oh, Mr. Kriegel, unfortunately, this was not us, you were part of a fraud,’” Krigel said. “And she said they were getting multiple phone calls a day from this specific fraud.”
The scam has popped up across the country, prompting multiple agencies to issue warnings for business owners to stay vigilant. That includes warnings from the Small Business Administration, the U.S. District Court in New Mexico and the Idaho Department of Finance.
Scammers use publicly available PPP loan information to find their targets and build profiles around them using information from businesses, social media profiles and more.
Kriegel has since filed a report with the Houston Police Department, which is investigating the issue.
For now, Kriegel is hopeful sharing his story can help raise awareness and inform others to be on alert.
“If they can get that amount for me, that can get much more from other people,” Kriegel said. “And anytime that there's a scam out there that can change people's lives or destroy lives, I think people really need to know what's out there.”