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These come in a variety of forms. Some can be quite creative, while others are rather crude and obvious. However, in most cases, the intended victim is telephoned and told by the fraudster that he or she has a large amount of money coming, but that there is a small fee required first. In other words, these schemes are basically a telephonic version of the "Nigerian Fraud Letter Scam" which is addressed in detail elsewhere on this Web site directly from the Home Page.
Typical examples are claims that the victim won a sweepstakes or lottery, but that up front "taxes" must be paid by credit card over the phone before the winnings can be forwarded. In other cases, the victim is told that he or she will receive a large settlement from an estate or lawsuit, but some fees or costs must be paid first. Often the perpetrators of these scams allege that they are calling from a foreign country and request that funds be overnighted to them out of the U.S. Some, in fact, do call from overseas.
The bottom line here is that people generally do not get something for nothing and any advance fee request should be considered a red flag.
Persons receiving any calls where there is a request to send money or provide a credit card number should refuse--particularly in cases where the caller claims you have won something or been awarded something you know nothing about--and in all cases where calls are initiated from outside the U.S. or the caller's identification is blocked or "private" or "out of area."
Regardless of how credible and convincing the caller is, odds are such a call is a scam. (If these fraudsters weren't credible and convincing, they wouldn't be successful in this line of work.)
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