Yet Another Scam - Don't Be Fooled

I guess I could devote an entire blog just to scams; it seems there's a new one (or ten...) popping up every day.  This latest one is a new one for me, though.

I got a call on my cell phone from an 876 area code last night (Sunday) at around 10:30 PM. I received 2 more calls from the same number about 17 minutes later. Interestingly enough, the caller left a voicemail message from "Mr. Shaw" at "eService" from what I could make out.

After completing the call I was already on and checking the vmail message, I returned the call to "Mr. Shaw".  Now he says he's with "Lieners International" and I tell him that I'm returning his call and ask him how I could help him.  He hung up on me after repeated requests from me to spell his name and his company; his accent was so thick you could cut it with a knife and most of my part of the conversation sounded something like, "huh?", "what?", "could you repeat that, please?", and "could you spell that, please?"

Anyways, I called back (giving him the benefit of doubt). Who knows, maybe it was a dropped call? It just rang...

Fast forward to this morning at 8:26 AM. Why look, it's a call from "Mr. Shaw"!  And, he informs me that I am the winner of 2.5 million dollars from Publisher's Clearing House. "The Publisher's Clearing House?", I giddily reply. "Yes, the Publisher's Clearing House," he says.  Then he goes on to congratulate me, detail how the money will be dispersed, and explain that since this is soooo much money, it'll need to be insured....yada....yada....yada....you know the rest.

He wanted me to wire the "insurance money" in the amount of $100 to Jamaica.

I laughed hysterically in his ear and told him that wasn't going to happen today.  He said something oh, so clever like "F#@$ you!" and I uttered something not too nice about his mama.

I get emails all the time warning me about calling 876 numbers but this caught me off guard since it was to my cell phone. All total, I made about 2 minutes in calls to this number.

Just waiting on the phone bill to see how much I'm out...