Alleged Scam Artist Targets Resident

At least one local resident is reminding people not to believe things when they sound too good to be true. 

At 8:28 a.m. Wednesday, a Goldthwait Road resident called police after believing she had been scammed. 

According to the police log, the woman had sent $1,000 in response to a scam and had then heard from a sweepstakes claiming she had won $500,000. They said they were on their way to her house to bring her to the bank so they could withdraw her sweepstakes winnings and give them to her. When things started smelling fishy, however, she called police.

Attempting to get more information, the resident heard from the sweepstakes representative, who said they were in Washington, DC, and would not be at her home to give her her winnings until noon that day. According to the person in DC, they were waiting for someone on their way to Washington, DC, from Spain on Delta Airlines. 

The caller told the Marblehead resident that since September 11th, the transaction needed to be insured for $50,000 and they would need her to pay that.

The resident said forget it and the sweepstakes representatives allegedly back tracked and told her their law firm would pay it and not to worry about it. When they later asked the woman for $4,000 more, she hung up the phone.

Later, according to police reports, the woman received another call from the person in Washington asking for directions to Marblehead. The woman also received an e-mail from someone saying they were from the FBI "head office" and an ATM transaction had been approved for her. 

The resident called the FBI and said to disregard the e-mail since the alleged employee whose name was on that e-mail is not employed by the FBI.