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Scam targets Iredell
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Published: October 2, 2009
A handful of Iredell County residents have been targeted by an assortment of scams.
In one case, a Statesville woman who has asked to remain anonymous, received several phones calls from a man identifying himself as "Mike Lawrence."
The man claimed that she had won a $1.5 million prize from Publisher's Clearing House.
But before she could claim her prize, the caller said, she was required to pay $200 in taxes to the IRS for the money.
He asked her to send the payment via Western Union and then she would receive her prize.
"I knew it was a lie from the word go," she said.
She reported the scam to the Statesville Police Department.
Another woman, Robin McNeely, said she and her son received two packages, one from UPS and the other from FedEx, filled with bogus checks and money orders.
Enclosed in the packages were Wells Fargo Western Union money orders and Option One Credit Union checks. The checks and money orders totalled $10,000, according to McNeely.
She and her family were excited because they thought the checks were from a settlement regarding their previous home.
They are on a fixed income and "barely making it," she said, so they have been looking forward to the settlement.
"We are having difficulty right now and to have $10,000 drop in our laps we were tickled to death," she said.
She said the checks and money orders look and feel very real.
Police Capt. Bill Riter said he knows of three individuals who were victims of similar scams in the past week.
Riter said once the checks are deposited into an account it takes a couple days for the bank to run them through the system before they realize they are fakes.
"They look like regular good checks and people are cashing them," he said.
Riter said victims are getting calls from someone claiming to be "Mike Lawrence" or "Rox Roy Lee," and the calls originate from area code 876 in Jamaica.
"These men are asking people to send them a check through Western Union for $200 to pay IRS tax fees and in return they will receive a check for $99,000," he said.
Riter advises anyone who receives such a phone call to hang up. Anyone who believes they may have been part of a scam should contact the police department.
"I want to make people aware if you get a phone call like this hang up and don't fall for any tricks," he said.
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