EUCLID, Ohio — We have a big warning to pass along after a Euclid man thought he won big money.
James Bailey, 63, said he got a phone call recently claiming they were from Mega Millions.
“Some kind of drawing, and they said I won a prize. I said, 'I won a prize?'" recalled Bailey.
They said he was chosen to receive a car and $750,000.
"I said, 'I can use that to pay off the mortgage,'” said Bailey.
He also told us he has some mental health issues and gets calls all the time, even several right in the middle of our interview.
“You get a lot of phone calls,” we said to him.
“Scammers,” he told us.
THEY WANTED EVEN MORE MONEY
The criminals told him he had to pay taxes upfront first $100, then $285, both on MoneyPak cards. He said he actually had to get a loan for that $285.
He told us that after giving them the money, they wanted $700 more.
"I said, 'ya'll scamming me.' I said, 'matter of fact, why don't ya'll send me some paperwork in the mail…I can show it to a lawyer if I can know ya'll legit,'” Bailey told us.
HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF
Ericka Dillworth from the Cleveland Better Business Bureau said imposter scams are rampant.
"In today's world, you have to look at every interaction with skepticism,” she told us. “I actually just came out of a meeting with staff, and we were specifically talking about a sweepstakes company. And we probably get three to five calls a day, and people believe that they've won.”
Dilworth said the best thing to do is just hang up. Also, ask yourself whether this is the normal way people win lotteries?
On the Mega Millions site, it has scam alerts about this kind of fraud, and MoneyPak also warns about lottery scams.
This has all hit Bailey at a rough time. He said he just lost his wife in October to breast cancer.
"That was real difficult, real difficult. The best wife I've ever had,” said Bailey.
CALLING THE SCAMMERS
We called the scammers who fooled Bailey. It went to voicemail.
"How do you people sleep at night? How do you target senior citizens who don't have money and you're stealing it from them?” we said in our message.
Bailey said he just wanted to step forward to help others.
"I don't want anybody else go through the same thing I'm going through,” said Bailey. “Scamming them of a lot of money, telling them they won a prize.”
