WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Factfinder 12 investigators deal with a lot of scams. We get dozens of calls every week. Some are about scams we’ve already covered, but when we see a new one, we want to warn you so you don’t fall for it.
A KWCH viewer received an email informing them they had won $1,000,000, an additional $10,000 and a $500 Amazon gift card. The email looked official, appearing to originate from an online gaming business and containing a claim number and a registration number. The email instructed the recipient to contact “Mr , Michael andison<sic>” from the Federal Reserve to get the ball rolling. So, that’s exactly what Factfinder 12 did.
The person on the other end of the phone acted as if he had been expecting our call, even though we were never actually sent an email saying we’d won anything. He instructed us to head to our closest Dollar General store to purchase a Green Dot MoneyPak card in the amount of $375. He said it was to cover registration. In fact, he called it a registration card. For the record, Green Dot MoneyPaks are essentially prepaid debit cards.
After listening to the person claiming to be “Michael andison,” we explained we were investigating his scam. We asked how we were able to win the lottery without having entered to win. He hung up and blocked our phone number.
Take a look at the email that accompanies this article and you’ll see some “red flags” that point to this being part of a scam. Bad punctuation, bad spelling…
