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Beware: Consumers warned about fraudulent
Unclaimed Property letters and emails |
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August 4, 2016 |
You've seen those announcements that the state
is holding unclaimed property, waiting for its
rightful owners to file appropriate paperwork
and claim their property. Idaho and other
states operate legitimate programs to help
identify and return to its citizens property
(often money) that has been unclaimed and is
being held in trust by the state.
Now a warning is being issued to watch out for
letters and emails sent out fraudulently by
scammers intent on deceiving people into
thinking they have valuable unclaimied property
coming from the state. The real goal of
these scammers: to get you to hand money
or your personal information over to them.
As the official representative of the state
unclaimed property programs, the National
Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators
(NAUPA) is warning consumers to be on their
guard against fraudulent letters and emails
alleging that there is an unclaimed sweepstakes
listing that must be liquidated. NAUPA is
warning consumers to be on guard against
fraudulent letters arriving via the U.S. Mail
and in consumers' email inboxes alleging that
they have unclaimed property.
This particularly deceptive letter is on fake
NAUPA letterhead and requests money be sent to
claim the property. “Not to be confusing, but
Idaho Unclaimed Property is currently contacting
some rightful owners with a letter as part of an
outreach campaign and those letters are
legitimate,” said Idaho State Treasurer Ron
Crane. “The association (NAUPA) does not notify
owners of forgotten or missing funds and never
has.”
If a citizen receives a letter from Idaho
Unclaimed Property it will be on the Unclaimed
Property letterhead. However, if a person is
ever in doubt of a letter’s legitimacy, there is
a phone number at the bottom of the letter along
with the claim agent’s name.
Many times the intent of this type of fraudulent
letter is to entice people to respond with
personal information for the purpose of stealing
their identity, or the victim will be asked to
send a fee so that the claim can be processed.
NAUPA encourages individuals to report any
suspicious unclaimed property communication to
the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3)
online at
www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx.
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The National Association of Unclaimed Property
Administrators is a non-profit organization
affiliated with the National Association of
State Treasurers. |
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