NEWS RELEASE                                             

For Immediate Release
September 11, 2008
Contact: Michele Nicholson
Public Information Officer
  (850) 651-7420

SCAM LETTERS CIRCULATING IN OKALOOSA COUNTY 

          A new wave of scam sweepstakes letters are circulating in Okaloosa County and Sheriff Charlie Morris wants to remind residents to be alert to these ongoing fraudulent attempts to con people out of money.

          One of the latest scams informs people they’re the recipients of a $50,000 cash award. They’re told their names were entered by the Sweepstakes Company, out of London.

           Another scam threatens violence or kidnapping if the recipient doesn’t pay a certain amount of money upfront.

          Residents are reminded that a number of electronic, postal, and telephone scams are circulating at any given time. If something sounds too good to be true, it is!

          There are several excellent resources you can go to for information on protecting yourself from scam lotteries and sweepstakes. They are:

              Postalinspectors.uspis/gov/radDocs/consumer/sweepstk.htm

              Consumerfraudreporting.org/lotteries.php

              Consumerfraudreporting.org/sweepstakes.php.

              Scamnot.org/scams.htm

              Fraudwatchinternational.com/known-scam-operatives/

              Fraudaid.com/ScamSpam/Lottery/

              For more information, you can contact OCSO Crime Prevention Specialist Ashley Bailey at 651-7153.  Ashley also publishes the CASE Fraud Alert on the 15th of every month and you can sign up with her to receive a copy via e-mail.

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