The Scam Call

The Envelope on the Padlock: How One Ledger Broke a County's Trust In this episode, we lay out the sequence of events from the morning Wayne Zimmerman found the envelope to the ledger notes that revealed a $214,000 shortfall, tracing how receipts, a scale operator’s access, and a so-called harvest advance coordinator combined to produce a multi-year fraud. How did relationship-based lending, blank receipt access, and a private ledger let the scheme persist until one trail walk exposed it? Person: Wayne Zimmerman Person: Stanley Long Person: Eric Thorpe Person: Carolyn Prewitt Person: Dennis Farr - February 11, 2019: Zimmerman found an envelope taped to a padlock at the Alderton Annex containing four receipts for Lot 7-C. - Lot number: 7-C appeared on four separate warehouse receipts claiming the same physical grain. - Farm size: Stanley Long had been farming 620 acres in Fenwick County. - Account deposit: Carolyn Prewitt transferred $47,000 into a "harvest participation account." - Shortfall note: On September 3, 2018, Thorpe recorded a $214,000 shortfall with the word "bridge" beside it.

The Laminated Certificate That Exposed $411,000 Church Scam A laminated donation certificate that survived a bonfire, a winter flood, and four years in a creek became the single physical clue that unlocked how $411,000 vanished from a small-town church building fund. Who took the money, where it went, and why the official newsletters never showed the truth are the questions that follow a napkin full of arithmetic and one paralegal's refusal to let the sums lie. In this episode, we follow how a simple document and routine estate work led a parishioner to question long-standing accounts, how those questions reached an attorney, and how a sheriff's office call began a formal inquiry into a decade-long discrepancy. How did routine donations totaling hundreds of thousands disappear from a fund everyone trusted? Person: Curtis Jones Person: Nicole Tucker Person: Agnes Pruett Event: discovery of donation discrepancies Amount: $411,000 - The Building Fund launched around the year 2000 and ran for eleven years. - Howard Vance donated $6,000 in the second year and received a laminated certificate. - Agnes Pruett gave $80 per month for 17 years, totaling more than $16,000. - The account balance at the time of discovery was $940 while $411,000 had been deposited over time. - Nicole Tucker, a 32-year-old paralegal, found the discrepancy while closing her great-aunt Agnes's estate.

The Two Stickers: How a Small-Museum Scam Stole $58,000 in Plain Sight A single photograph of two differently colored stickers on unopened boxes exposed a scheme that siphoned $58,000 from a small historical society over 26 months - and the two grants behind those stickers totaled $84,000 for a $42,000 project. How did identical proposals, duplicate funding, and a made-up vendor go unnoticed until a photo in a parking lot forced the audit question: who was collecting the extra money? In this episode, we tell the sequence of events from the first grant awards to the audit findings, laying out the people, paperwork, and transactions that created the illusion of a completed digitization project. What did the unopened boxes and matching reports really reveal about internal controls and trust at the Calverton County Historical Society? Person: Bruce Bell Role: Executive director Date (photo): December 4, 2019 Total awarded: $84,000 Actual project cost: $42,000 - The Illinois Humanities Council awarded $42,000 in February 2017 in two installments. - The Hartwell Family Foundation awarded $42,000 in April 2017 in a single lump sum. - Over 26 months Bruce Bell issued 31 checks to CHS Document Services, each between $800 and $3,200. - Approximately $26,000 was spent on legitimate expenses including scanning equipment, archival supplies, and part-time labor. - An audit completed in February 2020 by senior auditor Duane White found the two proposals were nearly identical in language, budget, and timeline.

He Filed Your Amended Return - Then Stole Your Refund Imagine trusting a bilingual tax preparer in a strip-mall office and later finding your Social Security number and signatures bundled in the desert - and that same preparer had redirected refunds to prepaid cards he controlled. More than sixty families in Vega Blanca County lost money through amended returns that refunded funds they never knew existed; how did the scheme stay hidden for years? In this episode, we follow the discovery that began when Amy Sanders found a rubber-banded bundle of tax documents on Creston Mill Road and trace how a preparer filed correct original returns, then filed fraudulent 1040-X amended returns to divert money. How did address changes, prepaid cards, and modest but repeated refunds keep this fraud under the radar? Date: November 14, 2019 Location: Creston Mill Road, Vega Blanca County, New Mexico Person: Frances Sawyer Case: Tax preparer fraud involving amended returns Amount: Approximately $133,000 total - 63 confirmed client households were affected by the scheme. - Average amount diverted per household was $2,112. - The preparer, George Padgett, began operating Servicios Tributarios del Valle in 2013. - Frances Sawyer earned $46,000 in 2018 and had her 2017 return amended in March 2018 claiming a $2,400 education credit. - The preparer held an IRS Annual Filing Season Program certificate and filed both original returns and later fraudulent Form 1040-X amendments.

The Humming Reefer: How a Deserted Trailer Exposed $1.4M Theft A humming refrigeration unit in an empty trailer three miles east of Creswell, Nebraska, led a retired mail carrier's photo to unravel billing that would amount to $1.4 million taken from ranchers who trusted one man. How did a Tuesday morning birdwatching habit and a daughter's careful review of invoices expose a scheme hidden inside routine hauling paperwork? In this episode, you'll hear how a chance photograph, a handwritten spreadsheet titled "shortfall," and a pattern of refrigerated-rate charges on cattle invoices connected neighbors, a producers group, and a single hauling business - and raised the question: who was profiting from billing ranchers for services cattle never needed? Person: Tracy Barrett Person: Kathleen Zeller Person: Keith Mills Location: three miles east of Creswell, Nebraska Amount: $1.4 million - Photo taken by Tracy Barrett at 7:42 AM on October 14, 2019 of an unattended running reefer trailer. - Rancher Shirley Nowak recognized the trailer had not been present the night before. - Kathleen Zeller discovered an invoice charging $43 per mile for refrigerated transport for 63 head over 91 miles. - Ron Zeller's ranch ran approximately 310 head; Shirley Nowak ran approximately 480 cow-calf pairs. - Keith Mills, age 51, operated Mills Ag Services and hosted quarterly producers group dinners in Creswell.

Neighborly Trust, Hollow Mailbox: The $412K Honey Futures Betrayal A quiet rural mailbox held a dry $47,000 check three days after 1.3 inches of rain - and the named owner had been gone eleven days; how did $412,000 in honey futures dissolve inside a web of neighbors who vouched for each other? The Branford County Honey Futures Fraud reveals transfers, handwritten ledgers, and a final notebook entry showing $288,000 "forward exposure" dated August 19, 2019 - so when did the architect decide to keep going? In this episode, we walk through the sequence of events from the first distributions that convinced neighbors to invest to the discovery of the check on Corbin Hollow Road, following the documents, phone calls, and handwriting that moved the case into federal court. How did community trust become the mechanism for a cooperative that never intended to deliver? Person: Richard Coleman Date: September 11, 2019 Location: Corbin Hollow Road, Branford County Case: Branford County Honey Futures Fraud Amount: $412,000 - A 15-year-old found a dry $47,000 check in a metal mailbox at 6:15 AM after 1.3 inches of rain three days earlier. - The named mailbox owner had been gone for 11 days when the check was found. - The scheme involved 31 investors and raised $412,000 for the cooperative. - Keith Davis's handwritten notebook in a storage unit recorded "forward exposure" and showed $288,000 on August 19, 2019. - Holly Lewis invested $31,000 total: $20,000 for a 2017 production share and $11,000 for a 2019 forward share.

How a Small-Town Philanthropist Stole $214,000 and a Plaque Trust felt like a currency in Kellner County: a beloved local businessman collected $214,000 in donations for a high-school scoreboard that never existed, and a bronze plaque with twelve donor names turned up face-down in the snow. Who engineered a five-month scheme that routed every dollar into a personal checking account and spent $171,000 on truck payments, casino cash and debt transfers? In this episode, you will hear how a gap left by a school board vote became an opportunity, how neighbors wrote checks without receipts, and how one man’s reputation allowed him to convert community goodwill into personal gain-so who was watching the money and when did anyone realize the scoreboard was a lie? Person: Marvin Carlson Event: Donations collected for a scoreboard that was never purchased Amount: $214,000 total collected Account: Deposited into Marvin Carlson’s personal checking account labeled "Kellner Athletic Foundation - Carlson, M., Administrator" Timeframe: Donations collected between March and July; reconstruction took eleven months - Eleven businesses and one private individual donated a total of $214,000 to the so-called Kellner Athletic Foundation. - The largest single donor amount engraved on the plaque was $45,000. - $171,000 was withdrawn from the account between March and July for truck payments, casino withdrawals, debt consolidation, and living expenses. - By August the account balance was $43,000, while a replacement scoreboard would cost at least $160,000. - The bronze plaque bearing donor names was found face-up in the snow by Vernon Wagner at 6:40 a.m, on a Tuesday in February.

The Freezer Bag on the Pole: How $61,000 Vanished from Sycamore Bend A freezer bag sealed around a bank statement hung fifteen feet up on a utility pole - inside, the escrow balance read $3,000 where state law required closer to $45,000-$90,000; sixty-one thousand dollars was missing, and the bag was the only clue that wouldn't let go. Who moved the money, and why was a paper trail left dangling in the rain? In this episode, we follow the timeline of deposits, inspections, and transfers that left Sycamore Bend residents exposed, and we ask how routine regulatory windows and internal account movements allowed the shortfall to persist; could the legal notice period have been exploited deliberately? Person: Dawn Andrews Date: July 9, 2019 Location: Sycamore Bend, Wabash County Account balance shown: $3,000 Missing amount: $61,000 - Sycamore Bend had 112 occupied lots subject to required escrow deposits. - Escrow deposits per lot ranged between $400 and $800, implying $45,000-$90,000 should have been held. - Richardson opened the escrow account in January 2016 with an initial $3,000 deposit. - Four county inspections occurred on Mar 2017, Oct 2017, Aug 2018, and Feb 2019 with 48 hours' notice required. - Transfers from Wabash Property Services into the escrow account were made days before inspections and moved out again within 30-60 days, leaving about $3,000 each time.

The Pallet of Salt That Exposed a $186k Small‑Town Theft A retired runner finds a pallet of 43 unopened 50‑pound bags of road salt dated February 11, 2017, sitting by a public works yard - an impossible detail that eventually unravels an $186,000 eight‑year theft from twelve small municipalities. How did a few dollars per ton slip past audits and budget reviews until one photograph forced the question no one had asked out loud? In this episode, you’ll hear how a regional purchasing cooperative worked, who managed it, and the small accounting choices that hid large thefts; the episode follows the discovery of the pallet and asks how modest per‑ton overcharges became nearly two decades of undetected fraud. Person: Howard Sheridan Date: June 4, 2019 Case: Kettlebrook Regional Road‑Salt That fraud Person: Cheryl Boyd Amount: $186,000 - 43 bags of road salt were found on one pallet, each bag weighing 50 pounds. - The receipt on the pallet was dated February 11, 2017, more than two years before discovery. - The cooperative was founded in 2011 and had 12 member municipalities. - Cheryl Boyd’s annual fee for running the cooperative was $31,000, split among the 12 members. - The scheme inflated prices by $4-$7 per ton on roughly 4,000 tons annually, producing $16,000-$28,000 per year in fraudulent payments.

The Auction That Never Happened: How $812K Vanished Quietly You will feel the chill of misplaced trust: $812,000 pooled from nineteen households vanished while the auction paperwork showed a sale had already passed. How did a two-inch rubber seal gap and the wrong lock expose a scheme run on punctuality and paperwork - and who finally pieced together the timeline that brought a trusted local operator to prison? In this episode, we follow the sequence of events from the fund’s launch in spring 2017 through the discovery in May 2019, tracing what David Ramsey knew and when, and asking how routine habits and small contradictions revealed the fraud. Person: David Ramsey Date: May 9, 2019 Location: Harwick, Illinois Amount: $812,000 Investors: 19 households - The pooled fund reached $812,000 by January 2019. - Ramsey offered investors promised returns of 12-15% annually. - Nineteen households invested, including a $28,000 deposit from Norma Becht. - Warren Weaver found a May 3, 2019 manifest visible through a 2-inch rubber-seal gap. - Warren’s parents had invested $43,000 in spring 2017.