{"id":5251,"date":"2012-03-23T13:38:28","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T19:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=5251"},"modified":"2012-03-23T13:38:28","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T19:38:28","slug":"consumer-alert-national-sweepstakes-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2012\/03\/consumer-alert-national-sweepstakes-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Consumer Alert …. \u2018National Sweepstakes\u2019 Scam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater Warns Consumers about \u2018National Sweepstakes\u2019 Scam<\/p>\n

Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater today warned consumers about an emerging scam related to requiring payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in order to collect \u201clottery winnings.\u201d A company calling themselves National Sweepstakes has contacted a senior consumer in Palm Beach County claiming to require payments to the IRS in order for the consumer to collect her $1 million-plus prize.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur department was able to keep this Floridian from giving away her life savings to these scam artists because an insurance professional acted on her instinct and made a call to our department,\u201d CFO Atwater said. \u201cI am proud of my department for acting quickly to avoid a much worse situation for this consumer, and I urge consumers to be on high alert for this and other such scams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legitimate lotteries do not ask for money up front to collect winnings, and it should always be a red flag if you have been notified of winning a lottery for which you never submitted an entry.<\/p>\n

Daily callers who identified themselves as Western Union employees stated that, in order to claim her winnings, the consumer needed to send $20,000, in the form of a personal check, to the IRS. Because the entire amount was not readily available in her account and had to be transferred from another source, the \u201ccompany\u201d said they would accept installment payments. The consumer then wrote personal checks in the amounts of $2,000 and $7,500 and mailed them to an address in Washington. She had also written a $20,000 check and mailed it to a Maryland address. That check was being held until funds were in place.<\/p>\n

An employee from the annuity company contacted the Department of Financial Services\u2019 Division of Consumer Services helpline because she knew something was amiss. An investigator from the Division of Insurance Fraud was at the consumer\u2019s home within 30 minutes to explain the scam and assisted her in closing her bank account to secure her remaining savings.<\/p>\n

Consumers who are contacted by this company are encouraged to contact the department\u2019s Division of Consumer Services by calling 1-877-MY-FL-CFO (1-877-693-5236) to report the scam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater Warns Consumers about \u2018National Sweepstakes\u2019 Scam Florida Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater today warned consumers about an emerging scam related to requiring payments to the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,68],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5251"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5251\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}