A caller posing as the Better Business Bureau told a Tennessee woman she won $3.5 million. The catch was a prepaid card, and that is how these scams get your money.
A Middle Tennessee woman got a call from someone claiming to work for the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The caller said she had won $3.5 million. To collect, she was told to buy a Green Dot prepaid card at a nearby convenience store. She sensed something was off and hung up. The real BBB has confirmed the call was a scam.
The scammer borrowed the name of a group many people trust. Robyn Householder, president and CEO of the BBB serving Middle Tennessee and Southern Kentucky, said scammers do this to make their stories sound convincing. She said the BBB does not call people about surprise lottery winnings or require anyone to buy prepaid cards to get a prize.
The phone number was linked to a Voice over Internet Protocol service. That means calls placed over the internet, which can make callers hard to trace. Prepaid card payments are also hard to undo. Once the money is sent, it can be difficult to recover.
The BBB did not say how many people received this call, whether anyone paid, or who is behind it. Anyone with a phone could get a similar call, so the steps in the alert box above are worth a read. They also say where to report the call.
A real prize never requires you to buy a prepaid card first, no matter whose name the caller uses.
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