Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
You’ve won a bunch of money, but you’ve got to send me some cash so we can get through that maze of red tape, processing fees, taxes and uh, anything else I can think of.
Wire me $98, and I’ll send you $50,000. Honest. Heck, I’ll send you a check first. Never mind that it’s bogus. That’s only in your mind. We don’t need to talk about that. It just shows I’m for real.
That’s how the latest telephone scams in Sweet Home are running.
Barbara Keener dealt with something along that line recently, and she’s only one of a number of people who’ve had to deal with similar scams in the last couple of months.
“I just want to make people aware this is going on,” Keener said. She received a call earlier this month from a man telling her she had won $50,000. Via collect calls from pay phones, the scammer asked her to wire him $98 and then $92 to deal with state taxes.
He told her not to tell anyone that she had won, Keener said. If she did, she would have reporters and long-lost relatives bugging her.
When he told her she was a winner, Keener said, “he says, ‘You don’t sound excited.’ I said, ‘I’m not — Maybe when I get the check in my hand.'”
The man called collect from the start, and he kept calling trying to get her to send money, Keener said. “I have eight calls on my phone right now (March 8).”
Reported to local police on Feb. 7, a local woman received a phone call and learned she had won the Reader’s Digest sweepstakes. She was told to meet a man named Robert Adams at Safeway, and she was supposed to send a $45 money order to Florida to get her winnings.
On Feb. 2, another complainant reported to police that his wife had received a phone call saying she would receive a $50,000 prize at 10 a.m. that day in person. She received no money. She did not agree to send any money, account information or other personal information. The calls were made from a pre-paid cell phone.
On Feb. 21, a woman received a fraudulent check for $1,950 from World Winners in Canada. It included information that she had won money from the Euro Lotto. She was to deposit the check to receive the rest of her winnings.
She suspected a scam and called the listed phone number to find a full voicemail box. She researched the Euro Trust Group and learned that it had been involved in fraudulent checks. Eventually, she would be asked to send money or banking information, said Police Chief Bob Burford.
Other incidents included a phone call, supposedly from Publisher’s Clearing House. In that one, the caller sought account numbers, credit card numbers and PINs.
“Typically, elder folks would keep sending money to these people,” Burford said. “They would be convinced by someone that they’d won some amount of money.
“You can see there’s a pattern, and we had some cases last year where (victims’) money was lost.”
Last year, at least one victim lost some $2,000, Burford said. Even after reporting the scam to police, they still sent money in hopes of winning money.
The scam artists typically ask for money to cover processing fees, taxes and other expenses, Burford said. In some cases, they tell their victims to send money and they will pay the other half of the taxes on the winnings.
Several victims last year sent money even when their family members warned them it was probably a scam, Burford said.
Such cases are difficult to solve, Burford said, because they are usually multi-state or multi-national scams.
The best way to avoid being taken is “not to fall for them in the first place,” Burford said. “Never, ever, ever give out personal information, account numbers, credit card information, Social Security numbers, maiden names or password information to anyone that calls you.”
If someone calls, they should have all the information that is pertinent, Detective Cyndi Pichardo said. In one case, someone stole a credit card from a victim’s mail.
The thief found the victim’s phone number in the phone book and called to “verify” the victim’s mailing address, Social Security number and mother’s maiden name and then activated the credit card.
If someone calles in that situation, they should have all that information already, Pichardo emphasized.
“If it sounds too good to be true, chances are that it is,” Burford said. “You can be assured that if you won $50,000 through Reader’s Digest or Publisher’s Clearing House, you’re going to receive verification in writing. They’re not going to ask you to send them any money; and if you didn’t enter the contest, be suspicious.”
If a scam artist has contacted you or you’ve been defrauded, contact the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.ftc.gov or http://www.ftc.gov%20 or 1-877-FTC-HELP.