Telephone Sweepstakes Scam Alert

The Ocean City Police Department is investigating a series of telephone scams involvingfraudulent sweepstakes. The scam, which targets an un-suspecting victim, is perpetrated by calling the victim and advising them that they have won a sweepstakes. The victim is instructed in order to receive the large sweepstakes prize they must go to a convenience store or drug store and purchase either a Green Dot, Money Pac Reload Card for a certain amount of money usually between $200.00 and $500.00. Once the victim has purchased the card they are instructed to contact the scammer who is pretending to be a sweepstakes representative who will process the winning claim. The victim is asked to provide the Green Dot, Money Pac Reload Card information over the telephone as a means of verification the victim has actually completed the task.

The result of this is that the scammer will use the information provided by the victim to redeem the value of the card that was purchased and the victim will be out the money.

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