Tony Nolan is among the would-be scam victims I’ve heard from lately. Tony got a call from what turned out to be a Kingston, Jamaica caller informing him that he’d won $2.5 million and a 2013 Mercedes in a Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

“Just tell me how to get the money,” Tony said, playing along. Soon the caller realized he was the one being played, and hung up.

“I was born some time ago,” Tony told me, “but I wasn’t born on a turnip truck.”

I hear from people with similar experiences from time to time. I have a feeling that I will seldom hear from those who actually get taken in these phone/Internet schemes. They are just too embarrassed at having been taken.

There’s a guy over in Water Valley who was the victim of an apparent scam with a new twist.
Jerry Burt began receiving packages of small items through the mail. They came from different places around the world — from New York to China and points between. All contained small, inexpensive items.
Finally, he reached one of the shippers by phone. The guy on the other end told him that he was a seller on eBay and the item he had sent Burt was paid for with a PayPal account. Burt has neither a PayPal account nor an e-mail address, for that matter.

Jerry checked with his credit card companies but found no unauthorized charges. Finally he contacted eBay — took him two days of trying to reach someone by phone — and learned that a total of 13 items had been charged to a PayPal account set up in Jerry’s names. All were under $5.

The company promptly started an investigation and put out a fraud alert, according to the North Mississippi Herald, which reported the story.

The best the victim can figure is that the perpetrator planned to establish a history with eBay by purchasing small items.

Then, they would order a big item but change the shipping address, having the more valuable merchandise shipped to them.

The scam that found Burt is different most we hear about. He was not a victim because he was greedy. His name and address were somehow selected as if by random, but he acted quickly as soon as he suspected something was amiss.

For the rest of us, the best defense are as follows:
1. Don’t give out any information on a phone call that you did not initiate;
2. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.