Scam alerts: sweepstakes, lottery

MONTICELLO – The Sullivan County Sheriff’s Office is issuing an alert to all county residents, especially senior citizens, regarding recent scams that are being attempted in the area.
The latest scams involve telephone callers who claim that a person has won either the Reader’s Digest Sweepstakes or a National Lottery. In some cases the intended victims have been contacted by mail.
The way the scam works is that the intended victim will receive a check from the scam artists to pay for the taxes and/or processing of the lottery prize that they supposedly won. The check is made out to the intended victim for more money than is allegedly owed. The victim is then asked to deposit the check into their bank account and then send the extra money from the check to another address that the scamster supplies. The check, which is a forgery, will take several days to “bounce” and be returned to the bank. By that time, the victim has sent the “excess” funds on to the new address and is out of the money.
Other variations of the lottery/sweepstakes scam involve the victim being directed to go directly to the bank and withdraw money to pay for the taxes on the alleged winnings and then sending it via Western Union.
The victim might also be asked to purchase a Green Dot money card or similar debit card. Once the card number is given to the scamster, the money is withdrawn from the account electronically and is gone.
“Most of our bank tellers in Sullivan County are tuned into these scams”, said Undersheriff Eric Chaboty. “When they see an older person suddenly withdrawing a large sum of money or attempting to deposit one of these phony checks, they usually try to intervene before the customer gets taken. They really do a good job but there is no guarantee that they will always catch it”, he said. The undersheriff suggested that you don’t answer the telephone if you do not recognize the number on the caller ID. If you do not have caller ID and receive one of these phone calls, just hang up.
As a reminder, never give out your social security number, date of birth, or bank account information over the telephone to strangers. “Modern technology continues to facilitate this type of fraud,” Chaboty said. “We all need to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity.”