You just won $50,000, now send us a check

SUN CITY – Imagine getting a phone call that informs you, “You’ve won $50,000 in a drawing! Just send us a check for $299 to claim your reward.”

Sounds like a deal, right? What luck! But does it also sound, as the old saying goes, too good to be true? Especially if you haven’t entered any contests?

This is almost exactly the phone call and offer one Sun City resident (who chooses to remain anonymous) received on Thursday, November 17.

“I continued talking to them, since I don’t enter contests, and they sounded really suspicious to me,” the Sun City resident said. “And they proved to be.”

The caller also asked if the SC resident would be interested in having a picture taken with the $50,000 reward, which, the SC resident said, seemed to enforce their legitimacy.

“I said I’m not at all photogenic; I’m not too sure about that, but we could consider that when you deliver it [the reward],” the SC resident said.

The SC resident immediately started questioning the caller’s legitimacy, wondering if he/she had in fact entered any recent contests.

The SC resident said he/she commonly sends in rebate offers through stores, which he/she always receives back, but “$50,000 sounded, “uh-oh.”

Upon the SC resident’s failure to commit to the offer, the caller persisted and placed a total of six to eight calls for five days running.

“I got so angry with them [the caller] because he called back a second time,” the SC resident said. “That’s why I got the idea to get their information.”

The SC resident said each call was from a different phone number, which the SC resident learned from Huntley PD officials are probably cheap, disposable (or commonly known as “throw-away”) cell phones that are more difficult to trace, and each time the offer changed, starting first with “send us $299” and working all the way down to “send us at least $50.”

“They were persistent to come back with the $50. That’s what scared me.”

The SC resident, based on the phone numbers’ area codes (one of which is Manhattan’s 212 and another of which is central Illinois’ 217), determined that the calls were each coming from different locations, one as far away as Jamaica.

The SC resident said that the caller supplied an address in Shreveport, LA to send a certified check through Western Union. The SC resident also described the caller as having an unidentifiable accent but clearly strong.

“He really kept on,” the SC resident said. “He said he would come up here.”

To which the SC resident replied that the only way he/she would provide him with a check is if he met him/her at the bank, where after he handed the SC resident the check for $50,000, he/she would provide the caller with the certified check he wanted.

The SC resident said the caller was very disinclined to accommodate his/her request, claiming that $50,000 was too much money to travel with.

Overall, the SC resident declined to have any involvement with what turned out to be another scam in the slew of them circulating out there. He/She did report the phone calls to the Huntley PD and placed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

Huntley PD Sgt. Mike Hewitt suggests that if residents receive questionable phone calls, such as these, to simply hang up.

“Usually,” Hewitt said, “it [the phone calls] will stop. If not, feel free to contact us {the Huntley PD].”

Sgt. Hewitt also provided the following websites for tips on handling scams.

— www.ftc.gov/bcp/consumer.shtm

— www.ag.state.il.us/consumers/consumer_publications.html

The SC resident’s suggestion for handling these calls is similar to Hewitt’s but more bold: “Say no, and slam the phone down.”

Note: Although the Sun City resident chose to remain anonymous, his/her intent with contacting the Sun Day was to alert other residents to this particular phone scam.

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