AND STILL PEOPLE FALL FOR IT

The charity United Way of Central Indiana has been forced to warn people that they have not sponsored a contest and that they are not paying people anything for having supposedly won $150,000 in London.

The scam goes like this. People have received letters announcing that they have won a sweepstakes in England, but need to pay $3750 in tax before they can collect their prize. The checks are supposedly from United Way.

All the supposed winners have to do is deposit the check, wait until it clears, then wire $3750 to London. Of course the checks are bogus and will bounce, but before they do the victim's bank credits the victim with the deposited monies... against collection.

It's like an advance.

The victim wires the money out, the check... which is counterfeit... bounces, and the victim must then pay back the bank for the missing funds.

It's the same scam that fraudsters use for various work at home schemes.

It's perhaps understandable why some people fall for it. Everyone loves free money. But with all the media coverage these days surrounding frauds, it's amazing that people don;t ask themselves a few simple questions:

1 - Did I enter a sweepstakes? If the answer is no, then you couldn't possibly have won anything!

2 - Why would I receive a check from a charity in the United States for a tax liability in England? It doesn't make any sense, no matter what the fraudster claims in his cover letter.

3 - Why should I, essentially, allow anyone to put money into my bank account, then be asked to wire the funds back to them? The answer to that question is the easiest of all... don't.

Never allow anyone access to your bank account. There is no reason why anyone needs access. There is no excuse, ever, to grant it.

Is free money too good to be true? That's why it isn't true.