Hundreds of elderly people have fallen victim to believing that they are grand-prize sweepstakes winners! For 5 years (from 2008 to 2013), calls from Costa Rica were made to individuals, who were informed that they had won millions of dollars and brand new vehicles. In order to receive the grand prize winnings, they were told they had to pay taxes upfront on their winnings. This is where they were conned into giving out money and even digging into their retirement funds to desperately pay for taxes to get at those million dollar winnings that they were promised. IF they did this, they’d be informed that the prize winnings were even greater and that more money was needed. Sometimes, the victims would pay more. Other times, they would catch on.
This type of scam really isn’t new, but what has surfaced that is unfamiliar is that one of these operations was masterminded by Geoffrey Alexander Ramer out of Costa Rica. He made use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology to fool Americans into believing that calls were being made from Washington, DC. Caller ID would reflect a 202 (Washington, DC’s) area code but were actually coming from Costa Rica. He, with use of the call centers that he was in charge of, successfully ripped off hundreds of Americans out of almost $2 million.
The Department of Justice has finally caught up to him. He pleaded guilty of charges on September 15, 2014. His fate will be decided at a later time. To learn more about this story, click on this link.
Unfortunately, bringing Geoffrey Ramer and his accomplices to justice has not deterred other scammers from using the fake-sweepstakes scheme to rip off Americans. It is something that elderly Americans and the general public need to constantly be aware of, and we’ll do our best to keep getting new information out to the public if and when it surfaces. Please contact us if you have additional information on scams or for questions.
photo credit: <a href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/danijaw/8686670683/”>danijaw</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>cc</a>
