- Leesville, La. -- The Vernon Parish Sheriff's Office is cautioning area residents of a scam involving unknown people who are initiating telephone contact with area residents in regards to alleged sweepstake winnings.
The Anacoco Police Department contacted the VPSO earlier this week regarding area residents who have reported that they were contacted by telephone by individuals who advise that the resident is the winner of a sweepstakes.
The resident will then be asked to go to a local department store and purchase a credit card which the resident will place money on at the time the card is purchased. The resident will then be advised to provide the credit card number to the caller when they are next contacted.
Once the credit card number is provided to the caller, he is able to access and remove the money on the credit card without ever having to have physical contact with the resident, thus committing a theft. The caller will also advise that the money on the credit card will be used to pay taxes on the winnings and after the taxes are paid, a person will be delivering the sweepstake winnings to the resident’s home.
No valid entity will request any person who has won any type of lottery or sweepstakes to provide any type of credit card information as a condition of receiving their winnings.
Residents are specifically being contacted by a male subject with a Jamaican accent from telephone number (876) 437-9912. The caller has also been providing names of local attorneys whom they state will deliver the winnings to the resident. Residents should disregard any attorney information provided to them as no local attorneys are affiliated in any way with nor do they have any knowledge of the persons conducting this scam.
If a resident receives a call of this nature, they are asked to contact their telephone service provider to enable call block service or simply utilize caller identification methods and don’t answer the call.
Call block service is very simple to use and instructions will be given on how to utilize the service when the service is initiated through the phone provider by the resident. Once the call block service is used, the caller will be advised that his calls will no longer be delivered to the number he is dialing.
Vernon Parish Sheriff Sam Craft also stressed that residents should never provide any personal identifying information, to include bank account or credit card information, to any persons over the telephone.
VPSO warns of new telephone scams - Leesville, LA - Leesville Daily Leader-Leesville, LA
