{"id":76,"date":"2017-08-10T12:02:45","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T16:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/?p=76"},"modified":"2019-10-07T15:18:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-07T19:18:42","slug":"congratulations-youre-a-winner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/congratulations-youre-a-winner\/","title":{"rendered":"Congratulations, You&#8217;re A Winner!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Have you received a letter, email, or even a Facebook message telling you that you have won a sweepstakes or lottery prize, such as thousands of dollars and a car? Have you been asked to send money to cover taxes or registration fees so that you can receive your prize? If so, you are being targeted by a common scam &#8211; no real sweepstakes prize would ask you to pay taxes or fees.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-77\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2017\/08\/SweepstakesScam-243x300.png\" alt=\"Sweepstakes Scam example\" width=\"450\" height=\"555\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2017\/08\/SweepstakesScam-243x300.png 243w, https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/files\/2017\/08\/SweepstakesScam.png 761w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Scammers may pretend to be legitimate businesses such as Publisher\u2019s Clearing House or Reader\u2019s Digest, or may use a similar sounding name. You may even receive a check in the mail that looks legitimate. The scammers claim they have sent you some of your prize so you can use the money to cover the cost of fees or taxes. Do not deposit the check &#8211; it is fake! Scammers hope that you will send them real money from your account before the bank realizes that the check has bounced.<\/p>\n<p>You may be instructed to not tell anyone about \u201cwinning\u201d to protect your prize. This is an attempt to isolate you so your friends and family can\u2019t warn you about the scam. Don\u2019t take the scammer\u2019s advice &#8211; call CAP at 1-800-649-2424 and we can help you determine if you are being scammed.<\/p>\n<p>Remember: if you won a real sweepstakes prize, you would never need to pay a fee to claim your winnings. Never send money to get money!<\/p>\n<p>Contributing Writer: \u00a0Annalee Beaulieu<br \/>\nContent Editor:\u00a0 Crystal Baldwin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you received a letter, email, or even a Facebook message telling you that you have won a sweepstakes or lottery prize, such as thousands of dollars and a car? Have you been asked to send money to cover taxes &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/congratulations-youre-a-winner\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4480,"featured_media":77,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[502396,500749,501083,481474,139,573,486656,501547,501307,498788,15972,502013,498431,500199,351538,501669,499880,500473,482450,498201,52818,499593,499094,499458,51264,484774],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-call","tag-check","tag-check-bounced","tag-consumer","tag-email","tag-facebook","tag-fake-check","tag-fees","tag-fraudulent-check","tag-free-money","tag-insurance","tag-letter","tag-lottery-prize","tag-pch","tag-phone","tag-processing-fees","tag-publishers-clearing-house","tag-readers-digest","tag-scams","tag-sweepstakes","tag-taxes","tag-win","tag-winner","tag-winning","tag-wire","tag-wire-transfer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4480"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/cap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}