Victim Location 84084
Type of a scam Sweepstakes/Lottery/Prizes
I started receiving a phone called on Saturday, July 27, 2019 from a person claiming to be with Reader’s Digest (RD) who was trying to verify my name and birthdate so that a check in the amount of $950,000 could be sent to me. This check was the prize money that I supposedly had won in a sweepstake with RD. The person gave me his as name, Jerry Whittaker and a phone number, 757-405-7226 (Portsmouth, Virginia). When I asked how I could verify the information about what was just said to me, I was given an additional number, 310-479-8100 (Los Angeles, Calif.). I called the Calif. number and it was a number for RD subscriptions.
Mr. Whittaker informed me that he would send me documents on how to get the "check". The phone call to Los Angeles and the email with the documents yielded nothing. No documents were received by me. (It was in a subsequent call that Mr. Whittaker said he did not send the documents because I needed to verify my address.
The phone calls from Mr. Whittaker continued through Sunday, July 28 when I blocked the phone number on my phone.
On Tuesday, I received a call from Mr. Whittaker again, this time asking why his phone was put on "block" and I told him I suspected his calls appeared to be a scam and I did not want him calling me. He then told me another person was going to call me and ask some questions so that the "documents" could be sent to me. On that call, I was introduced to a Joe Coleman and an Elizabeth Powell. Ms. Powell is supposed to be employed by RD. She wanted to verify my name and email address. She said she would send the "documents" to me later in the day but first had to do some paperwork to make sure I was still eligible to receive the money (check). This conversation led to several others via phone and "documents" were eventually sent to me. A copy of the documents was attempted to be sent but that was unsuccessful. I do have a hard copy of the "documents" if needed.
The paragraph that stands out in the document states, "All checks will be delivered at the winner’s residence within 24 to 72 hours after delivery fees have been paid to an assigned (C.F.O.)….." The following paragraph states, "Payment of delivery fees should be done at a Western Union or Money Gram or Bank location to an assigned Chief Financial Officer to exempt winners from paying the thirty point two percent (30.2%) tax the federal laws have….."