On July 21, 2009, a Gales Ferry resident reported to Ledyard Police that he had received a letter indicating that he had won a lottery prize in excess of $500,000.  The letter was accompanied by a check, which was purportedly to cover “insurance and processing fees.”  The letter instructed the recipient to contact a “claim agent” at a specific number.  The recipient alerted the police.

 

State and local police have investigated similar incidents in the past.  In such scams, the “claim agent” routinely instructs the recipient to deposit the check into a checking account and to contact the “agent” when the check is deposited.  The “agent” then instructs the recipient to make a wire transfer of funds from the check.   These checks are routinely counterfeit, and represent an attempt to have the recipient forward monies from his/her checking account before the fraud is discovered by the bank.  In addition to promises of large cash prizes, other indicators of potential fraud are foreign postmarks on the envelopes, foreign stamps, and poor grammar or misspellings in the letters or on the “checks”. 

 

Ledyard and State Police are reminding residents that such scam attempts are pervasive through the mail and over the internet.  Residents should never provide personal information, including Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, bank routing numbers, or other personal information to unknown requestors. 

  

By:

 

Sgt. John J. Rich

Connecticut State Police

Resident State Trooper—Ledyard, CT

The Planning Department recently launched the Ledyard GIS website, www.ledyardgis.com providing an opportunity for those curious about GIS to see its applications in action. A GIS is a computer-based mapping tool that takes information from a database about a location, such as streets, buildings, water features, and terrain, and turns it into visual layers. The ability to see geographic features on a map gives users a better understanding of a particular location, enabling Ledyard residents, realtors, developers and the general public to make informed decisions about their communities.

The website offers unique features and functions that allow users to access maps and property information using the Town of Ledyard’s GIS map data. With the aid of state of the art mapping software, www.ledyardgis.com visitors will have access to maps that show parcels, wetlands and roads in the Town as well as zoning and assessment data. An interactive mapping feature allows users to work directly with GIS mapping tools and provides the ability to print maps or convert them to .pdf documents. The site’s online map gallery provides 24 hour online access to view town grid maps, zoning and parcel maps. The Town spent $4,300 developing the site and additional data improvements will be added in the near future.

For more information about Ledyard’s website, contact the Planning & Development Office.

This has been verified by the FBI.

Please pass this on to everyone in your email address book. It is spreading fast so be prepared
should you get this call. Most of us take those summonses for jury duty seriously, but enough
people skip out on their civic duty, that a new and ominous kind of fraud has surfaced.
The caller claims to be a jury coordinator. If you protest that you never received a summons for
jury duty, the scammer asks you for your Social Security number and date of birth so he or she
can verify the information and cancel the arrest warrant. Give out any of this information and
bingo; your identity was just stolen.

The fraud has been reported so far in 11 states, including Oklahoma, Illinois, and Colorado . This
(swindle) is particularly insidious because they use intimidation over the phone to try to bully
people into giving information by pretending they are with the court system.
The FBI and the federal court system have issued nationwide alerts on their web sites, warning
consumers about the fraud.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/june06/jury_scams060206.htm