Phone scams. The phone will ring and you hear on the other line that you have won a lottery or sweepstakes cash prize or award. Then as you start to think about it, you do not even recall entering in anything of the sort. Sometimes these phone scammers will ask for shipping costs to be paid by your before your prize can be shipped or to pay sales tax on the item before you can receive it. They may even tell you that they will be happy to take your information over the phone so that you don’t even have to leave your home. There are many red flags in this phone scam scenario. Businesses do not normally call you on the phone to award any type of prize. There aren’t usually random drawings done with a phone number, purchase records or street address information. Taxes are paid on prize winnings after the fact, which is your responsibility. Lastly, any time that consumers hear that their credit card information can be taken over the phone, for convenience, it should be a huge red flag.
Fake health plans that are sold at a discount price are another new type of money scam that may be confusing to consumers. Everyone likes saving money and wants to get affordable health coverage, especially in these poor economic times. Scammers know that it is an issue with many people, so they take advantage of a current problem. If the scam is by phone, the caller will normally say that they are associated with a government business. This should be the first scam indicator because the government offices do not spend time calling individuals. Also, if they ask you for any personal information such as street address or city that you live in, it should be a give away that they are fake. That type of information should already be known to them if they truly were authorized by the government to offer such a health plan. The best advice for this scam is to keep saving money and hang up the phone.