T-Shirt Scam Affects North Jersey Towns' Facebook Groups

NORTH JERSEY — The latest internet scam plays on New Jersey residents' local pride, and sometimes their compassion.

In a scam that proliferated on Facebook this summer, people gain admission to Facebook groups for a community, school, or police or fire department, then post a link to shirts bearing the name of that department.

In some groups, the person will write about their warm memories of the town, and sell shirts with the founding date and logo.

Other times, people have said their autistic child is selling the shirts, or their child who was bullied in school.

The scam may just be a way to get people's personal information, authorities have said.

Similar scams have recently hit social media in New Jersey towns including Hillsborough, West Caldwell, Freehold, and Hoboken.

"Their t-shirts aren’t even nice looking!" lamented the West Caldwell, N.J. Police Department, tongue in cheek, in a post earlier this month:

"Scamming/spamming the PD is pretty nervy!!," responded one commenter.

A text version has hit fire departments from the "O.C." (Orange County, California), and several in Connecticut.

A screen printing trade magazine warned in July, "The perpetrators’ MO is to impersonate a representative of a local police or fire department and message you with an offer for a discounted
T-shirt that uses the department’s logo. Other grifters have even less shame, like the one who posted in a South Carolina Facebook community asking people to buy a shirt designed by his autistic son.

"Dozens of police agencies in the aforementioned regions have issued warnings to not click on the links within the messages, as well as reminders that they do not solicit the public using anyone’s personal information."

Examples of what the scam looks like were posted on Twitter recently by the Rhode Island State Police:

Have you seen the scam? Comment below!