The Dubuque Police Department would like to warn area residents of new scam attempts happening locally.
The first involves a fraudulent e-mail message appearing to be from the FBI. If you receive or have received an e-mail from Robert Mueller, the FBI Director or any another FBI official, it is a scam and you should report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (www.ic3.gov). The scammer hopes the recipient will think it is legitimate, and subsequently provide personal information or money for “fees” for a number of possible reasons – all of which are fraudulent. Be advised that the FBI does not send e-mails to people; they always talk to people on the phone or in-person. They will not ask personal information type questions (if they are the FBI, they will already know the information). These scam e-mails have an official appearance due to scammers utilizing pictures of the FBI Director, seal, letterhead and banners. These e-mails also appear to come from domestic and overseas FBI offices. To get more information on this or other cyber scams go to the official FBI website (www.fbi.gov) and visit the page “New E-scams & Warnings”.
In a second recent scam attempt, the scammer approaches a home owner (often an elderly person) and offers to seal or resurface their driveway (or provide some other form of service – usually related to home improvement/maintenance). Shortly after receiving payment in the form of a check, the scammer returns to the victim and claims to have lost the check. The scammer asks the victim to re-issue another check and will then cash both the “lost” check and the new one. Residents should use extreme caution when “hiring” individuals who solicit them for work (home improvement or otherwise). Prior to hiring anyone, residents should thoroughly check references and insure the person is local, reputable and insured.
Lastly, there are still ongoing and recent attempts by scammers to solicit funds from victims by claiming they won a lottery/sweepstakes or are otherwise entitled to a large sum of money for any number of reasons. These scams usually involve the victim paying a fee to process the claim, pay taxes, etc. and/or will request personal information. These scams come in the form of e-mail, letter or phone call.
As always, never send money or provide any personal information unless you are absolutely sure the request is legitimate. A little research (usually in the form of a quick phone call or two) can save you a lot of money and almost always prevent you from being scammed.
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