Beware! A new marketing or fraud scam has popped up recently by mail. While sorting through my Christmas cards (and bills!) today I found a very official federal looking “final notice” letter addressed to me designed to look like something from the IRS or state government. It was marked extremely urgent.
Upon closer examination, I discovered it was also marked as “NOT A GOVERNMENT DOCUMENT” which caused my fraud radar to go off. Being curious and an advocate for identity theft protection I decided to check it out. Here is what I found, told in a familiar Christmas rhyme….
T’was right before Christmas and all through my town, fraudsters were sending fake letters around.
I opened my letter – and what to my wondering eyes should appear?
An award notification for 2 round trip airline tickets to just about anywhere! (Ok, not anywhere, they were within the continental U.S. but work with me on my Christmas parody.)
I dashed to the phone, and placed my call; I wanted to investigate and report back to ya’ll. (Yes, I’m a southerner)
Greeted by personal questions quite broad; I knew in a moment it must be real fraud.
Do you live alone? How much money do you make? Can you give me your credit card number for travel reservations sake?
I spoke not a word and went straight to my work. I needed to blog my experience and tell ya’ll about these jerks.
So here me exclaim, be this letter really fraud or not;
Not falling for any phishing tricks protects your identity a lot!
