Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Do you want to win a million dollars or go on a luxury vacation? The idea of winning a big prize can be mighty alluring, and con artists are ready to exploit your eagerness to score that big check or dream trip.
Sweepstakes and lottery scams are still going strong. In 2020, the Federal Trade Commission received more than 116,000 reports of fraud involving prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries that swindled people out of $166 million.
The initial contact in a sweepstakes scam is often a call, an email, or a piece of direct mail offering congratulations for winning some big contest. But there’s a catch: You’ll be asked to pay taxes or some type of fee to claim your prize. The scammers may request bank account information, urge you to send money via a wire transfer, or suggest you purchase gift cards and give them the card numbers.
Don’t ever pay a fee to claim a prize, and don’t wire money to or share gift card numbers with someone claiming to represent a contest or lottery. Both payment methods are a sure sign of a scam.
Be cautious of a call or an online solicitation claiming you were automatically entered in a sweepstakes and all you need to do is make an upfront payment to collect the prize.
Carefully examine the envelope of a purported sweepstakes mailer. If your entry form or congratulations letter was sent bulk rate, it means a lot of other people got the same mailing.
Hang up on cold calls claiming to be from a lottery or sweepstakes. They will not call you out of the blue to tell you you've won.
Don't provide personal or financial information to anyone who contacts you about a lottery prize.
Don’t deposit supposed winnings that come in the form of a partial-payment check, accompanied by instructions to return a portion to the contest sponsors. The check will bounce, and you’ll likely have to repay your bank for any withdrawals from that deposit, including what you sent the scammers.
Don’t call a number with an 876, 809 or 284 area code to confirm that you’ve won a prize. Those codes belong to Caribbean countries that have become hotbeds for contest frauds and phone scams.
If you think you have fallen victim to any type of scam, call the AARP Fraud Watch Network Helpline at 877-908-3360 for guidance and support, or visit the AARP Fraud Watch Network at http://www.aarp.org/fraudwatchnetwork.
