My parents are long time residents of Artesia and were recently victims of a MoneyPak scam. I wanted to alert the Cerritos-Artesia Patch community in hopes of preventing this from happening to other residents. They received a phone call at home and the man told my dad he won a sweepstakes, with the prize being $3.7 million. He was instructed to put $2,000 on MoneyPak cards and call the man back with the serial numbers from the MoneyPak cards. After this, he was told to put an additional $13,000 in his bank account as a "foothold" and that he would receive his prize within 2 days.
I know this obviously sounds like a scam and that most people who are pretty tech savvy and street smart would realize this. However, we sometimes forget that our parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents who are not accustomed to this type of fraud can be easy targets. I've read about other scams online where the scam artist impersonates an IRS Agent or the local utility company.
Thankfully, I was able to stop this before additional funds were sent to this scam artist. I hope this story is a reminder to all to be diligent about not only your own personal information and finances, but that of your family and friends as well.
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