If somebody calls you on the phone announcing that you’ve won a huge sweepstakes, there’s a 99.9999999 percent chance that it’s a scam — especially if you never entered a sweepstakes contest.
If that winning sweepstakes caller then tells you a fee is required for your huge sweepstakes winnings to be released, it is now a 100 percent chance this is a scam.
It’s hard to believe that after all the scam reports on the news, all of which basically sound the same, people are still being defrauded out of thousands of dollars.
Here’s a good rule of thumb.
Assume anyone who calls you asking for money, bank account information or Visa gift cards is a scammer.
Yet we still see regular reports like the one on the front page of today’s Review of people being taken to the cleaners by scammers.
I don’t know what’s more upsetting. The fact that people are still falling for this, or the fact that our federal law enforcement agencies appear to be unable to do anything to stop it.
The Federal Trade Commission reported last year it received more than 35,000 reports of fraud in Tennessee in 2020, resulting in more than $40.6 million in losses.
The state’s fraud numbers increased from 2019, when there were 28,000 reports and $20.7 million in losses.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, consumers nationwide reported losing more than $3.3 billion to…
