Look Out for Lottery Scams—Our Tips for Protecting Your Identity
U.S. Global Investors is committed to protecting our fund shareholders’ identity in an effort to prevent fraud.
Many scam artists are using the mail or the Internet to try to get people to reveal account numbers and other sensitive financial data. A number of these scams use the names and addresses of real companies in order to add credibility to their criminal effort.
U.S. Global Investors has been targeted in this fashion by scammers who have mailed a letter with our name on it informing the recipient that he or she has won the “North American Millions Jackpot” and a lump-sum payment of $250,000. U.S. Global is in no way involved in this “lottery scam.”
Lottery scams are increasing in number and some of them are sophisticated in how they try to obtain money from their victim. Those who are taken in by these scams quickly go from lucky “winner” to very unlucky “loser.”
We urge our fund shareholders to be cautious when notified by letter or email that they have won lotteries that they did not enter. Never provide Social Security numbers, bank account numbers and other personal information that could be used by identity thieves.
Fund shareholders who receive any suspicious communication that claims to be from U.S. Global Investors should call us immediately at (800) 873-8637.
Examples of suspicious communication include:
- No return address on the envelope or a foreign postmark;
- Letters that push the recipient to act quickly or risk forfeiting the “prize”, and those that urge the recipient to call an “agent” or “broker” to initiate a “simple claims process”;
- Poor grammar and misspellings and other indications that the letter may be a homemade creation;
- Inclusion of a check to pay taxes on the “prize”. These checks are fraudulent and are intended to be deposited so the “agent” or “broker” can persuade the recipient to remit all or part of the check amount to expedite the claims process. Eventually the check is revealed to be bogus, with the recipient losing any money sent back to the “agent”; and
- An email notification that comes from a free email account like Google Mail, Yahoo, etc.
Using the mail to perpetuate a scam is a crime. Recipients of such letters can report to the local postmaster or file a complaint with postal inspectors or the Federal Trade Commission.
U.S. Global Investors • 7900 Callaghan • San Antonio, Texas 78229 • 1.800.US.FUNDS