These scams often originate overseas and are very hard to trace. It is very unlikely victims of these scams will recover any of their money and banks often hold individuals responsible for the loses when information is provided voluntarily to scammers.

If you have received a scam call, text, or email of this nature, please report it to the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division by submitting a complaint online - www.IndianaConsumer.com or call 1-800-382-5516.

Stop! Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller says red flags should be raised if you are asked to pay to enter a sweepstakes or told you already won without entering the contest. Also, legitimate promoters do not require you to pay for “insurance,” “shipping” or “taxes” in order to collect your winnings.

Scammers will likely ask you to send a check or money order by overnight delivery hoping to rip you off before you realize you have been duped. If they offer to send you a check that covers a partial payout to cover any up-front fees, be leery. Usually these checks are fraudulent and can take up to six months to bounce. The funds will be withdrawn from your account to cover the bad check and you will be out what you sent to the fraudster.

So far this year, the Attorney General’s Office has received more than 500 calls from consumers reporting sweepstakes or foreign lottery scams. Sweepstakes are not necessarily illegal, but they are commonly used by disreputable promoters to swindle unsuspecting consumers.

Expect strings to be attached if you’re in a public place like a mall or trade show and enter a prize drawing or sweepstakes. The only thing you might be signing up for is more sweepstake solicitations via the mail or your phone. Often times the personal information you provide on entry forms is sold to third parties for placement on sweepstakes mailing lists.

Thinking about buying a chance to win a foreign lottery? Think again. These types of lottery solicitations violate U.S. law, which prohibits the cross-border sale or purchase of lottery tickets by phone or mail. Your chances of winning are slim to none and you will likely receive more phony offers for other sweepstakes. Your best bet is to ignore all phone and mail solicitations for foreign lottery promotions. If you receive what looks like lottery material from a foreign country, give it to your local postmaster.

Senior citizens are contacted, usually late at night, by a scammer posing as a panicked grandchild. All the caller has to say is, “Grandma?” The grandparent will guess the name of the grandchild it sounds most like and then continue to feed personal information to the scammer. The alleged grandchild typically explains that they were arrested, have an emergency, were involved in an auto accident or got into trouble while traveling.

At this point, the “grandchild” needs the grandparent to wire money immediately for bail or to pay for damages. In addition, the scammer will beg the senior citizen not to contact other relatives because he or she does not want to “get into trouble”.

Law enforcement officials are not certain how perpetrators are obtaining the phone numbers for so many seniors or senior housing complexes across the U.S. It is believed that scammers are most likely calling random numbers until they reach a senior citizen or they research senior housing units on the internet. While many seniors have reported the scam without falling prey to it, unfortunately, many others have been victimized.

The key to avoiding this scam is to:

• Remain calm despite the ‘emergency’ nature of the call. Resist the pressure to “act now.”
• Make attempts to verify the identity of the caller, i.e. ask questions about the name of their grade school, a pet, another relative or a childhood memory only a close relative would know.
• Contact the actual grandchild’s home or cell phone, or other family member directly to verify the story before taking any further action.
• Understand that a request to wire money through Western Union or MoneyGram is a “red flag” and an immediate tip-off that the call may be part of a scam. Funds sent via wire transfer are hard to track once received by scammers and are usually not recoverable by law enforcement or banking officials.

If you or someone you know was a victim of this or another scam, please contact your local police department.

If you have friends or loved ones who could be vulnerable to this scheme, please share this information and encourage them to check out any situation similar to this that may arise.

If you have further questions, please talk to one of Ossian State Bank’s employees.

These scams often originate overseas and are very hard to trace. It is very unlikely victims of phishing scams will recover any of their money and banks often hold individuals responsible for the loses when information is provided voluntarily to scammers.

If you have received a scam call, text or email of this nature, please report it to the Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division by submitting a complaint online or by calling 1-800-382-5516.

The following are examples of e-mail messages that you could receive:

Subject line:  Money transfer was not accepted by ‘name of institution’ Dear Account Holder, Money Transfer sent by you or on your behalf was hold by our bank. Transaction ID: 17019302204565051 Current status of transaction: on hold Please review transaction details as soon as possible.

or

Subject line:  Wire transfer was hold by ‘name of institution’ Dear Bank Account Operator, I regret to inform you that Wire transfer initiated by you or on your behalf was hold by us. Transaction: 238006864683285 Current transaction status: pending Please review transaction details as soon as possible.

What is Phishing?

Phishing is the practice of electronically obtaining personal information such as passwords, debit or credit card numbers, and other sensitive personal information by posing as a trusted institution, such as a financial institution or other legitimate institution you do business with. The purpose of phishing is to trick recipients into giving away account information, which can be used to steal money directly from linked accounts.

How does phishing work?

Phishing usually involves an e-mail message that purports to be from a legitimate institution. Sometimes the recipient is instructed to click on a link within the message to “verify” their account information, with a threat of account deactivation or suspension.

Users who click on this link will be taken to a fake website that may look very similar to their own financial institution’s. The user may be asked to provide his or her account number, PIN, Social Security number, mother’s maiden name and other information, which can be used to commit identity theft and fraud.

Occasionally, the message will contain instructions to call a phone number, at which time they will be prompted to enter this information.

How to protect yourself:

The first thing to remember when it comes to phishing is this: your financial institution and other legitimate institutions you do business with already have your personal information. They have no need to contact you to verify this information. If there is a legitimate problem with an account, your financial institution will contact you with instructions to rectify the situation, which will never involve revealing personal information to an unsolicited e-mail or caller.

When you receive an e-mail message that claims to be from a trusted institution and asks you to verify account information, the easiest way to deal with it is to simply delete the message.

You may also forward the message (including all headers) to reportphishing@antiphishing.org, spam@uce.gov and to the institution whose name is used in the message.

If a message seems like it might be legitimate, contact the institution directly, using the number in the phone book or by typing their web address directly into your web browser. Do not use the phone number contained in the e-mail message, and do not click on any links contained in the message. It is easy to make a link say one thing, but lead elsewhere.

Warning Signs:

1. The message uses a generic greeting (“Dear valued customer”) instead of your name
2. The tone of the message is urgent and demands that you respond immediately
3. The message asks you to verify account information or provide other personal information
4. The message is from an institution you don’t even do business with
5. There are grammar errors in the message
6. The e-mail address that the e-mail is sent from contains the institution name, but it is not immediately after the @ in the e-mail address
7. If your web browser or other software are trying to alert you of a problem with a website or message, pay attention to these warnings

Links for additional information:

• Anti-Phishing Working Group
• Federal Trade Commission
• Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)