Scam uses Nationwide Insurance name

Havre Daily News staff

A Havreite said she recently received a very official-looking piece of mail that seemed too good to be true — and after she knew it was too good to be true she wanted to let people know to watch out for it.

Nora Nelson said she received a very official-looking letter — postmarked from Africa — telling her she had won $250,000 in a lottery. But she hadn’t entered that lottery.

It also included a check made out to her from Nationwide Insurance in Columbus, Ohio, for $2,350, to help her cover the cost of the procedural fee. The letter told her to send $1,850 for that fee, Nelson said.

But, she said, she knew if she had deposited the check and mailed off $1,850, the check would have bounced, adding that she expects many people in the area have received the mailings and wanted to warn people not to take them at face value.

The scam has a long history, with reports going back at least to 2009 of the Ohio Department of Insurance and the Columbus-based insurance company telling people the letters — and checks — are fake.

The federal government on https://usa.gov/stop-scams-frauds says people who have received letters they believe are fraudulent should first report the fraud to the local police and could also contact the Montana Office of the Attorney General’s Office of Consumer Protection, 1-800-481-6896 or 406-444-4500, or online at https://dojmt.gov/consumer.

People suspecting fraud also can contact the Federal Trade Commission at https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/federal-trade-commission or use the online complaint assistant at http://bit.ly/1hQ5Fy5 to report most types frauds.

They can report fraud that used the U.S. mail to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, available online at https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/contactus/filecomplaint.aspx.