Big Isle police warn of new phone scam
Advertiser Staff
Big Island police are warning residents of another telephone scam, the third such warning issued this month.
Police advise victims of telephone scams to call the police nonemergency number at 935-3311. Residents are also advised to call the local Office of Consumer Protection at 933-0910, the toll-free number of the Better Business Bureau in Honolulu at (877) 222-6551 or the toll-free number of the Federal Trade Commission at (877) 382-4357.
In the most recent scam, intended victims receive telephone calls from someone who tells them they have won $150,000. The catch is that before they can collect their winnings, they must wire $1,600 to an outfit in Costa Rica to cover "insurance costs."
Where to report con schemes
They also are told they must call an 800 number to receive a PIN number to claim their winnings.
Two other Big Island telephone scams were reported earlier this month. In the first scam, reported on March 6, an elderly woman was called by someone saying he represented a company he identified as the Overseas Lucky Corporation.
The caller informed her she had won a $5 million lottery and asked her for her bank account number so the corporation could withdraw a $498 fee. About $500 was withdrawn from the account, but no winnings were ever handed over, police said.
In the second scam, reported on March 10, people would get a call by pager or voice mail informing them of an emergency in the family, such as a parent's death or an injured child. Then they would be told to call a number with a prefix of 809.
Once victims called, they were put on hold or got a lengthy recording and were charged $25 per minute for a foreign call to the Dominican Republic, according to police. The average cost of the call has been estimated at more than $100.
The same scam has been used with telephone prefixes of 284 and 876.
