A Battlefords area resident is warning people in the community to be on the lookout for a mail scam in the area.
According to the resident, the scam consisted of a card in the mail claiming she was selected to receive $100 in gas rebates valid at Shell, Esso, Petro-Canada and more.
There was a toll-free number and a claim number provided.
She said she contacted Esso and they claimed to know nothing about the promotion. She then called the toll-free number at which point the person on the other end of the line asked if she preferred to use Visa or Master-Card.
She didn’t give her card number, but was eventually told she had won two free air tickets to a certain destination, at which point she claimed to have said “two very nasty words to him” and hung up.
The recipient is convinced the card was a scam and wants other residents to be aware of it in case they receive something similar in the mail.
Unfortunately, “vacation scams” are all too common.
These are conducted not only through the mail, but also through automated telephone calls that offer “travel rewards” or a certain amount of money towards your next vacation. Sometimes names of reputable companies such as WestJet or Air Canada are used to make the offer sound more legitimate.
In a March 2014 interview with the News-Optimist, retired police officer and fraud expert Brian Trainor talked about these offers of free trips. He said “they don’t tell you a lot of things.”
Many times the ticket is a "companion" ticket where someone else must also join you on the trip and pay the full fare. Other times it could be a one-way ticket that requires you to sit through a timeshare presentation just to get a ticket home.
The advice offered most often from law enforcement agencies about vacation scams is to simply ignore them and to never give out personal information or credit card numbers over the phone.
