The Morrison County Sheriff’s Office wants residents to be aware of a couple scams that are circulating. According to the Sheriff’s Office, the most recent case is a person receiving a phone call from someone posing as a representative from Publishers Clearing House. The scammer advises the person that they won a prize. They are then instructed to go and buy Amazon Gift Cards and give the caller the PIN numbers. In the past week, there have been a couple of related scams where the scammer will ask the victim to buy large amounts of Amazon Gift Cards or other types of cards with pin numbers displayed.
Another scam that has been recirculating is the computer scam. Recently, a caller stated they received a call from someone claiming to be with Microsoft and that they needed to install an update on their computer. After the caller downloaded the update, they lost some of their files. The caller was informed to go to Wal-Mart, buy some gift cards and send the gift card information to a California address to retrieve the files.
Sheriff Larsen stated that in the reported cases mentioned, the victims did not have their personal information compromised nor did they lose any money. Larsen wants to remind residents that if they receive an offer that seems too good to be true, it’s more than likely a scam. Scammers are ultimately trying to trick innocent people into giving their personal information as well as access to their financial data. Scams continue to be an ongoing problem nationwide and residents are encouraged to never give out their personal information over the phone.
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