With the holiday season comes an unwanted influx of telephone scams, unscrupulous individuals who promise all manner of wealth and riches in exchange for personal information or a small payment to cover administrative fees or taxes.

The Better Business Bureau fields complaints about these sort of scams from individuals throughout the United States and Canada, compiling a list of the top 10 most reported scams each year.

Near the top of the BBB’s 2016 list sits sweepstake scams like the Publishers Clearinghouse con that continues to plague Limestone County residents.

Just yesterday, a local man reported that he had received a series of calls from an “unknown” number. He asked that his name be withheld for the sake of privacy, so the News Courier will refer to him as George. Fed up after the fifth call, he finally answered.

According to George, a man claiming to be a representative with Publishers Clearinghouse explained that he had won $2.5 million and a 2017 Mercedes-Benz E-Class despite the fact that George had never entered the sweepstakes. The caller dismissed his concerns, explaining that he had won a random drawing that was open to anyone.

After much back and forth and two more phone calls, both of which came from a Jamaican area code, George said the caller told him all he needed was his driver’s license and social security number for administrative purposes.

He said the caller also explained that George needed to load $500 onto a prepaid credit card at Walmart to cover the taxes for the first installment of the $2.5-million prize.

“Red flags started flying everywhere,” George said. “And I told him not to call me anymore, obviously there was no money or no new Mercedes.”

According the BBB’s 2016 annual Scam Tracker Risk Report, this scheme — along with a laundry list of others — cost Americans $50 billion and affected one in four households last year.

Robin Isbell, vice president of finance at the Huntsville BBB, explained that in June, the bureau updated their scam tracker system to allow consumers from the 13 North Alabama counties they represent to report how much money they lost to a scam.

“To date, 101 consumers reported that they had been scammed or potentially scammed out of $24,607,” she said.

How find a fake

In the case of the Publishers Clearing House scam and others like it, Isbell said the bureau debunks these scams by contacting the actual organization or company directly.

“They told us that they don’t make calls. If it’s a big prize, they just show up at your door, and if it’s a small prize, they send a check,” she said. “And, to date, the have never given away a car.”

She also said if a sweepstakes asks for money, you haven’t won anything.

As for the con artist’s claim that George needed to pay taxes on the initial prize installment, Isbell clarified that in the case of sweepstakes, taxes are paid directly to the Internal Revenue Service — never to the company awarding the prize.

She also warned that countless other scams are alive and well in this area and that consumers should be particularly wary of callers claiming to represent charities during the holidays.

“Our customers need to be aware of ‘look-alike’ and ‘sound-alike’ names of charities,” she said.

“They use high-pressure tactics and appeal to our sense of compassion during this season in particular to get us to give on the spot.”

A charity’s legitimacy can be easily verified by visiting www.give.org or www.bbb.org, or by calling the Huntsville BBB at 256-533-1640.

“Know that if you are going to donate, you have every right to know every thing about the charity before you write a check,” she said. “When dealing with charities you are not familiar with, your best policy is to request something in writing and make your decision based on that.”