Mt. Vernon Register-News

Local

July 2, 2008

Internet brings scams to the 21st century

Editor’s note: This report is third in a week-long series on consumer frauds and scams.

By KANDACE MCCOY

kandace.mccoy@register-news.com

MT. VERNON — Technology may be the wave of the future, but it is also a tool which scammers use to defraud consumers of identification or even bank account information.

Last year, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan warned consumers against unsolicited e-mail which circulated claims that the recipient had won the Illinois Lottery. Madigan’s office warned the e-mail was part of a scam designed to defraud consumers of money and gain personal information from them, a warning which Mt. Vernon Police Detective Marty Terry said consumers should still be wary of.

Terry, who is also the elderly senior services officer for the King City, said he has received a number of complaints regarding lottery scams — either by e-mail, phone or letter in the mail — informing residents that they have won a lottery. However, in order for the resident to claim the money, a fee is required to “help defer costs of shipping.” And if the fee is paid, then consumers are allegedly supposed to receive the money.

“If you won [a lottery], you never have to pay to win,” Terry advises. “And if you didn’t enter, then you haven’t won.”

“The rule of thumb is if it sounds too good to be true, then it probably is,” warns Jefferson County Sheriff Roger Mulch of e-mail and Internet scams. Mulch said one example of an Internet scam was of a complaint by a resident who found a car on a Web site such as eBay. And though the complainant had been in communication with the seller by phone and by e-mail, once the money was sent to the seller, the complainant never saw the product.

Another scam Mulch warns consumers about are e-mail scams. “They’ll be by someone claiming to be sick or terminally ill, and if you send them your bank account and identifiers, they’ll e-mail you [money]. There are hundreds that come in daily like that.”

Terry also said that he received notification from the Illinois Department of Aging warning of stimulus scams. “The IRS does not contact people by e-mail and won’t ask anything from you,” he explained. He also said if consumers aren’t educated about scams, they won’t be able to identify one and could be vulnerable to scam artists. “If you’re not familiar with [an e-mail] scam, and get an e-mail from a bank [claiming] that bank is going to close your account, you may [unintentionally give information] to them. A bank would never call you for information. They already have that.”

Those suspecting they may have been victims of fraud may contact the Mt. Vernon Police Department at 242-2727 or the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department at 244-8004.

For additional information on how to avoid consumer scams, visit www.illinoisattorneygeneral.gov or call the Consumer Fraud Hotline at 800-243-0607.

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