From DMV to PayPal, these scams are on the rise in North Myrtle Beach, police say

Heating the house, holiday gifts and wrapping are annual finances that can make winter especially expensive. One needless money drain to watch out for this season is swindlers.

The North Myrtle Beach Police Department is sounding the alarm about a rise in common scams.

“It’s one of those things where it’s always been a problem,” said Detective Sergeant Justin Knotts. “I would say that we have had an increase towards the end of the year of 2025.”

In November and December, the police department saw “a couple frauds a day, certainly several a week,” according to Knotts. He warns of three kinds of prominent ruses he calls romance scams, government entity scams and phishing scams.

“We see all types of people falling for these scams. I will say, some of the most common that we see are the older generations, and I think that kind of falls on their lack of knowledge, so much of their comfortability with technology,” Knotts said.

Romance scams tend to be the lengthiest, and often the most costly, because the scammer takes the time to cultivate trust. The scammer will reach out, typically through social media, and build a relationship with their target to take advantage of their trust. Despite the name, romance scams don’t always involve a romantic ruse.

“When they start getting a little more comfortable with them, they’ll start asking, ‘Hey, can you send me this money? We’re going to start a business together,’ or, ‘Can you open a bank account under your name? I’m not in the country right now,’” said Knotts, “And they’ll use any excuse in the book to try to get them to do something.”

Asking for money and pushing to open a bank account are red flags, especially for strangers and digital acquaintances.

In a government entity scam, the scammer poses as an authority to target people. One common scam is to pose as police or the Department of Motor Vehicles and demand payment for alleged traffic citations by text, phone or email. In Horry County, Knotts says scammers will check arrests on the J. Reuben Long Detention Center website and reach out to family members of arrestees.

“If your loved one was recently arrested, that’s a pretty traumatic incident for anybody, and so they’ll use that vulnerability to extort you from all sorts of money because you trust them,” Knotts said.

The scammer will tell a relative to pay for the arrestee’s supposed bond through a platform like Venmo, but in reality that’s not how bonds are paid.

“If you’re unsure if the government entity that’s calling you is legitimate, it’s okay to hang the phone up, contact their non-emergency dispatch line and ask if this is a legitimate person that works there, ask to speak to a police officer so they can verify,” said Knotts.

Everyone familiar with modern technology has probably encountered a phishing scam in their time. Scammers pose as legitimate businesses to gather personal information like payment information or social security numbers.

“They’ll send you an email claiming to be Amazon … but instead of the way Amazon is spelled, they may change the ‘O’ to a ‘0,’ so it’s not actually Amazon, but from first appearance, it appears to be,” Knotts said.

Although the practice started on email, often involving deceptively legitimate-looking websites, similar ruses now rely on texts, direct messages and phone calls.

The most common scam NMBPD has seen recently involves text messages allegedly from PayPal, where the scammer asks the target if they authorize a large payment. When the target says no, the scammer calls them, posing as a PayPal representative.

The scammer then manipulates the target, sometimes into surrendering remote access to their computer, and other times saying they could be fired for mistakenly sending money to the target’s account. For that ruse, the scammer will instruct the target to send money in a box, purchase gift cards to share the code information by phone or deposit money in a Bitcoin machine.

As with government entity scams, it’s a good idea to confirm the identity and validity of any company seeking money.

“If they’re claiming to be Microsoft, and you’re on the phone with someone, and they’re asking you to send money, that should be a red flag. That will never happen,” said Knotts. “Hang the phone up and find their actual representative from that business and call them.”

No matter who’s asking for money, it’s a good idea to remain vigilant.

“I always say, ‘Trust, but verify,’” Knotts said.