Scams, scam attempts continue to plague locals

While local residents have yet to fully experience summer’s increased temperatures, they have experienced another area in which things have really heated up. Scam artists claiming to represent a range of organizations, from reputable companies to make-believe lotteries, have made false promises of riches galore in an effort to separate Atmore and Escambia residents from their money.

“It’s all over the place,” said Atmore Police Chief Chuck Brooks. They’re basically all the same scam, but there’s so many variations of it. There’s one called the Brazilian Lottery, there’s one called the Jamaican Lottery, there’s the Publishers Clearing House scam, and there are several others. In every one of them, they tell people to send them a check for $950 or some figure to pay the processing fee or taxes on the money, and they will send the person $34.5 million or some figure like that.”