Impostor scams among top 10 complaints to FTC

Scams by those posing as friends, family, companies or governmentagencies to get people to send money made the Federal TradeCommission's top 10 consumer complaints for the first time in 2010,the FTC said.

The uptick in complaints about these "impostor scams" may reflectan increase in the fraud or simply more awareness of the problem,says FTC lawyer Betsy Broder. But she says the problem isn't showingmuch sign of abating, despite prosecutions.

Someone calls the FTC at least once a day asking about its non-existent sweepstakes. People have even driven long distances to theagency to collect their "winnings" after mailing a fee to what theythought was the FTC, Broder says.

Scammers have impersonated officials from the IRS and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. "What is common is that they try to identify withorganizations people know about and trust," Broder says. "They havesome kind of logical connection, like that you have to pay taxes onwinnings."

Sweepstakes fraud is often run out of call centers in othercountries that use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) so it appearsthey are calling from the United States.

One Costa Rica-based scam claimed to represent the "SweepstakesSecurity Commission." To receive their "prize," victims had to wirethousands of dollars to Costa Rica as a "refundable insurance fee."Forty people have been convicted for fraudulent Costa Rica-basedtelemarketing schemes.

David Mikkelson, co-founder of urban myth-busting website Snopes,has noticed more people posing as friends or relatives stranded inforeign countries without money. These fraudsters will hack intosomeone's computer or e-mail account or start a new e-mail accountthat's close enough to fool that person's friends and relatives. "Itseems all the more realistic because they recognize the e-mailaddress," he says.

These are offshoots of a Nigerian money scam that Mikkelson saysdates back to the 1800s: "Human nature doesn't change, just thetechnology does."

MoneyGram paid $18 million in 2009 to settle charges that itallowed its money transfer system to be used by fraudulenttelemarketers to bilk consumers. One near-victim told the FTCrecently that Western Union alerted them that they were trying tosend money to a scam and recommended they call the FTC.

Broder says scam artists often buy lists of frequent sweepstakesparticipants. The "scratchier the handwriting, the more valuable thename is," she says, because the person is likely elderly.