The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is alerting parents to a new tactic employed by scammers. These individuals are falsely claiming to be AMBER Alert representatives, exploiting parental anxieties to gain personal information.
Scammers are contacting parents, falsely offering to register their children in a hypothetical AMBER Alert database. Critically, this is entirely fraudulent. They are also requesting sensitive personal details and even suggesting meetings at home.
The CHP emphasizes that AMBER Alerts are activated solely by law enforcement. No registration is required or offered by legitimate authorities. They caution against sharing personal information and interacting with unknown or suspicious numbers.
Parents should immediately disregard any calls or communications claiming to be from AMBER Alert representatives, particularly those flagged as potential scams.
In the event of an encounter with such a scam, report it to local law enforcement authorities.
AMBER Alert is a nationwide system designed to rapidly notify the public of missing children. It was established in memory of Amber Hagerman, a child abducted and murdered in 1996.
