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Arkansas Scholarship Lottery warns about scam

Officials from the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery are urging you to be aware of a lottery scam that is taking place.  The following is a release from the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery:

The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery is once again warning Arkansans about telephone scammers making false representations about individuals winning a lottery prize. This week the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has received reports of a person purporting to represent the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery calling Arkansas residents and informing them that they have won lottery prizes.

The scammer, often calling from an 876 (Jamaica) area code, will often know the victim's home address, and will often instruct the victim to go to a local store to purchase a pre-paid card called Green Dot MoneyPak to use to pre-pay taxes owed on the prize. In some cases the scammers provide a toll-free number that, when called, mimics the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery phone message.

ALWAYS BE SUSPICIOUS OF UNSOLICITED CALLERS REQUESTING YOUR FINANCIAL INFORMATION.

To protect yourself, please remember:

• The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery NEVER requires the payment of any money in order to claim a prize

• The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery typically does not call people to tell them that they've won, except in contests that the person has intentionally entered.

• Never provide any personal or financial information to someone over the phone unless you initiate the call or you are certain the caller is legitimate, especially Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and credit card numbers.

If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery, Powerball or Mega Millions, be on your guard. You can always call the Arkansas Scholarship Lottery Security Hotline at 1-888-606-6292 for more information or to check the legitimacy of such claims.

The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has notified the Consumer Protection Division of the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office of this scam.

For more information on scams of this kind, visit the Better Business Bureau at:

http://www.bbb.org/blog/2013/10/the-truth-behind-the-area-code-scam/

Johnathan Reaves is the News Director for KASU Public Radio. As part of an Air Force Family, he moved to Arkansas from Minot, North Dakota in 1986. He was first bitten by the radio bug after he graduated from Gosnell High School in 1992. While working on his undergraduate degree, he worked at KOSE, a small 1,000 watt AM commercial station in Osceola, Arkansas. Upon graduation from Arkansas State University in 1996 with a degree in Radio-Television Broadcast News, he decided that he wanted to stay in radio news. He moved to Stuttgart, Arkansas and worked for East Arkansas Broadcasters as news director and was there for 16 years.