Just when you think the red flags relating to a scam should be pretty clear, you hear more troubling reports when it comes to sweepstakes and gift cards.
All the buzz about the Mega Millions jackpot _ and the one winning ticket sold in South Carolina that captured a prize worth nearly $1.6 billion _ could trigger even more related scams, like one that hit one woman in Troy, Mich.
A letter arrived in the mail this year stating that she had won $750,000 in what was called "The Cash is King Super Sweepstakes Drawing."
The wording was odd. But the prize was so amazing.
After receiving the letter, she began receiving phone calls, demanding that she send money orders as "collateral," according to police. Supposedly, the "Award Notification Commission" was unable to contact her and now the matter was turned over to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
She got pressured into sending seven money orders totaling $6,750 to an address in Miami.
And the calls continued, including phone calls from someone who claimed to be a "Tim Perkins" who was trying to extort even more money from her.
The scamming stopped when the victim talked with her daughter, who realized that her mother was being ripped off.
What's a big sign of a sweepstakes scam?
The catch: You must send money for taxes_or buy some products _ before receiving that incredible sweepstakes or lottery prize.
The result: You only lose money, you don't win anything.
Nearly half a million people reported some sort of lottery or sweepstakes-related fraud to enforcement agencies in the United States and Canada in the past three years. Reported losses totaled $117 million in 2017, according to a Better Business Bureau report.
The actual number of victims and losses is probably much larger because many victims are too embarrassed to report a scam, according to experts.
Schemes vary. Scammers can reach out by direct mail, social media, phone calls, text messages and smartphone pop-ups.
Many times, the victims are seniors who may have lost a loved one, just gone through a divorce, lost a job or experienced some other hardship. They're hoping that somehow their luck has changed.
Some con artists even claim to be connected with the established Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes.
Other victims may be told that they must pay transfer fees to get their winnings sent to the United States from Jamaica.
In many cases, callers may say you have to go out and buy gift cards to pay for fees or other charges if you want to collect a prize.
Last year, 2,820 people sweepstakes and lottery scams to Better Business Bureau Scam Tracker, an online tool for tracking scams.
The median loss was $500. The most frequent method of payment was wire transfer. But scammers are frequently asking for gift cards now.
This year, for example, impostors who claimed to be from Publishers Clearing House told a potential victim that he won a $25,000 prize. But the caller wanted the consumer to pay $100 upfront to collect the prize. The consumer realized it was a scam.
Another consumer claimed that a male caller told him he had won $4 million. The consumer only had to call another number to pay processing fees. The consumer realized it was a scam.
Some tips from the Better Business Bureau:
�� Never send money or buy gift cards to cover taxes or other fees to collect a prize.
�� Be extremely careful of social media. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center says about one-third of the complaints it receives about sweepstakes and lottery fraud occur over social media. Many victims are contacted through Facebook.
An important point to remember: If you end up caught by one scam, you could end up in a database used by fraudsters and end up receiving more cold-call solicitations.
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