A Bogue Chitto man said he was not convinced by a scam artistoffering him $5,000 in unsolicited cash this week. The would-bevictim said he hoped by sharing his experience that others wouldnot be taken in by false claims.

“They said I had qualified for a government grant,” said JimmyLofton. “I couldn’t figure out how because I hadn’t applied foranything.”

The scammers were persistent, Lofton said. A man and womancalled Lofton three times this week saying they needed his bankaccount number to electronically deposit the grant award.

On the third call, Lofton said he told the scammers he didn’thave a bank account and asked them to the mail the money to hishome address.

“They got real quiet after that and then hung up,” he said.

Lofton had used caller identification to record a Ripleytelephone number, but attempts to return the call wereunsuccessful.

“When you call that number back, you can’t get nobody,” he said.”It’s blocked.”

Bill Moak, president and chief executive officer of the BetterBusiness Bureau of Mississippi, said Lofton “absolutely did theright thing.”

“What they’re counting on is that people will be so starry-eyedby the prospect of getting money that they’ll give them personalinformation,” he said. “My advice is just don’t believe it -especially if they ask you anything about your personal financialresources.”

Unrestricted government grants to individuals are virtuallyunheard of outside of student loans, disaster loans and a few otherspecial circumstances, Moak said.

Moak added, however, that recent federal grants and loansrelated to recovery from Hurricane Katrina have given somecredibility to claims made by scammers and has made it harder forsome people to differentiate between real disaster relief andscams.

“If you don’t remember applying for a grant, that a bigtip-off,” he said. “Over the last year or two, we’ve heard a lotabout this type of call. There are variations of it.”

One variant has the scammer claiming to work for the InternalRevenue Service and trying to collect back taxes. The scammerrelies on the credibility and fear of an audit associated with theagency to prompt the victim to respond, Moak said.

“The IRS is going to be taken seriously and most people will bea little worried about upsetting them,” Moak said. “Everyone wantsto stay in their good graces and that makes them more likely tofall for it.”

Technology helps the scam artists escape detection, he said.

“It’s very difficult to catch these people,” Moak said. “Thephone numbers, even those that come across the caller ID, are notgoing to be reliable. They’ll use whatever numbers they can.”

In fact, Moak said in following up on another recent complaintthe phone number used was to a legitimate company, The ConferenceCenter. Ironically, it is a teleconferencing service in New Yorkthat his agency actually uses.

Moak urged those who receive telephone calls they suspect arescams, and especially victims, to notify their local lawenforcement agency and the attorney general’s office.

They can also notify his office at 1-800-987-8280.

“We’ll track it to collect information for any investigationthat may come up,” he said.