The Millard County Sheriff’s Office has been made aware of yet another scam to get the money of unsuspecting residents.  There is an email circulating that states the resident has won some money but a relative has claimed the money in Malaysia and the company has now contacted the FBI to see if in fact the subject who picked up the money is a relative.  The email comes through and looks very official and even has a copy of a passport on it.  The email asks the recipient to look at the passport and identify the person as a relative and if they are unable to do that it asks for some personal information to be emailed to them.  See the attached for further information about the email.  Sheriff Robert Dekker urges anyone who receives a message like this to contact the Millard County Sheriff’s Office and advises them to not give out any personal information.

In recent weeks the Millard County Sheriff’s Office has received several complaints from citizens stating they have been contacted by someone posing to be from Publishers Clearing House.  The callers posing to be from Publishers Clearing House been advising Millard County residents that they have won a large sum of money.  They then ask the residents to wire them a percentage of the winnings through Western Union.  They assure the residents that they will then bring them their winnings in a Publishers Clearing House van.  .

Many of our residents are receiving this type of call and Sheriff Dekker reminds you to NEVER give out personal information over the phone to anyone and use extra caution if wiring money to individuals you don’t know.   If you have questions please call us at 435-743-5302 or 435-864-2755.

Most of us take summons for jury duty seriously, but enough people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of scam has surfaced where the caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. The scam has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado.  The scam is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully people into giving information by pretending they're with the court system. Simply tell the caller NO, hang up the phone, and report the call to us immediately.

The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning consumers about the fraud.