Operator of local transportation company prevents customer from losing nearly $20,000 in scam

COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Imagine being able to stop a crime before it happens. Well, that’s exactly what happened for one local man. 

Courtland Dixon runs a transport service for elderly and medically disabled people in the Chattahoochee Valley. 

Dixon says a recurring rider scheduled a transport to the bank without knowing the rider was in the progress of a financial phone scam. 

“I arrived to pick up Mr. Holifield, and I noticed he was on the phone,” Dixon explained. “I didn’t think anything of it, so I took him to the bank. When he came out of the bank that’s when the antennas kind of started to rise because he had a lump sum of cash.”

Dixon said the man withdrew $10,000 in cash. 

This is when Dixon asked if the man was making a purchase. The man’s response — he was paying a bill.

“I was like…they don’t take debit card or credit card and he said no, they need cash,” Dixon recalled. 

This is when the man explained the bank did not allow him to withdraw the remaining $9,000 and he needed to go to another bank. 

Dixon responded, “I’m not sure that there’s another one of these banks in the area.”

The man told Dixon that the person on the line was looking for the location. At this point, Dixon knew something wasn’t right and dropped the man back off at his home. 

“When we arrived at his house… I said Mr. Holifield, I don’t want to pry, but it will make me feel so much better if you talk to a friend of mine at the police department before you went further with this transaction.”

The Columbus Police Department says the phone scammer was pretending to be an official with the Federal Trade Commission, claiming the elderly man had “legal action” against him after his wife had recently passed away.

“Based off the signs that Mr. Dixon had given me, I called Mr. Holifield. Mr. Holifield was crying. He was scared. He kept saying he was nervous and that he needed help,” Brown recalls. 

This is when the man revealed that he was to place the money in a shoe box outside of his home for a carrier to pick up the money.

“We were more shocked about, Mr. Dixon’s quick response for his patient,” Brown says. “We get a lot of cases like this where a lot of times the drivers are in on the scams with the elderly people.”

He adds, “It’s just the fact that he understood those clues and reached out to try to get his clients some help.” 

Brown says there are many signs for elderly to look out for when it comes to phone scams, like if the caller has an American name, but an international voice is speaking or being directed to take large amounts of money out for warrants.