LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) — Scammers have long impersonated government officials, but their new tactics are more intimidating than ever before.

“Scammers want to use our emotions against us which is why they’ve really escalated this scam quite a bit recently from the reports that we’re getting threatening jail time or cooperation as a witness in a particular case possibly, but of course, if you’re a witness, you need to pay legal fees to be involved. Anything they can do to scare us or steal our identity or steal some money from us,” says Chris Babin with the BBB of Acadiana.

Scammers combine personal information collected from data breaches with official looking seals and watermarks to make the correspondence seem legitimate. These letters received in the mail are threatening: asking you to pay legal fees to have an attorney claiming you have a criminal case against you, sometimes even threatening jail time.

“A lot of times they’re sending mail through the USPS postal service which is a crime to send this type of fraudulent mail through the postal service. People are receiving these letters, they’re looking realistic. They’re not giving a lot of detail about the criminal activity that they were alleging you were involved in which makes you more curious which is why a lot of times people are calling and trying to figure out what’s going on and, in the end, they’re just trying to scare you into paying money upfront,” Babin said.

Here are some tips from the BBB on how to avoid Government impostor scams:

• Verify correspondence with government agencies. If you receive a piece of mail or a call that seems suspicious, take a step back and make sure it’s legitimate before you take any action.
• Don’t engage with scammers. Stop answering calls, letters, or emails and block any numbers that have called you about the scam.
• Report government imposter scams to the FBI. You can report your experience to ic3.gov.

If you have a scam you’d like me to investigate, feel free to send an email to smasters@klfy.com.