Waterford Police Warn of New Scam Call

The scammer pretends to be a government official notifying the victim that he or she has just won $9,000 and later asks for money.

Waterford police are warning residents about a new scam that starts off informing a victim he or she has won money and then asks for a payment as part of the process.

A Waterford resident told police that a person called identifying himself as Eric Johnson and a government employee. What he said next starts off as seemingly good news.

"The suspect said that the resident had been a `good citizen` and had won $9,180 which would come in 4 installments," Waterford police said on the department's Facebook page.

But Waterford police said that "if it sounds too good to be true" is probably is and are cautioning people, "Don't fall for this one."

The caller then told the resident that he "had to give some of the money to the community in which he lived," but first the caller asked the resident to wire $180 from Western Union" to a Washington D.C. address. Police said that the caller's number was 202-657-5633. 

A search in Google of the number reveals several posts describing a similar scam. When doing a reverse phone number search on whitepages.com, the phone number comes up as "Level3 VolP" located in Hyattsville, MD with a note that "Heavy spam activity is suspected."

Waterford police said on their Facebook page that no residents have fallen for the ploy, but are spreading the word about the scam.

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