DeKalb residents are not winning the Canadian lottery and Nigerian royalty does not want NIU’s help.

The DeKalb Police Department and DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office are investigating and combating popular scams that have been reported in DeKalb county.

OverSeas Money Transfer

This scam has multiple forms but always ends with the victim being asked to move money, said Detective Angel Reyes of the DeKalb Police Department. The victim will be given a traveler’s check or money order, and the scammer will give an excuse, like higher taxes, to transfer the money. The scammer will tell the victim everything they need to do and how to fill out the check, cash the money order and keep 10 percent as their pay, Reyes said.

The victim will then be asked to transfer the rest of the money through Western Union to the scammer.

Typically a week or two later, the victim will be notified by the bank the money order or traveler’s check was fraudulent, and they are responsible for paying money back to the bank, Reyes said.

“Some of the checks are very good knockoffs,” Reyes said. “Sometimes the bank is fooled too.”

The scammer will often list an overseas address, but when the money is sent by Western Union, it can be picked up anywhere with the transaction number, Reyes said. The scammer is hard to locate because the victim won’t know who they are, where they are or where they are going to withdraw the money from globally, he said.

This scam can be disguised as a sweepstakes or lottery the victim has not entered in. The victim will receive a letter with a check telling the victim they won, and the check will cover the cost of releasing the money after it is wired by Western Union, Reyes said.

This scam also targets newly graduated college students in the form of a hiring scam who are looking for a job over the Internet, he said. The scammer will pose as a potential employer and offer the victim a position in the United States before asking them to transfer money for them.

The scam can also take the form of a lonely heart-seeking person, who will say they need the money for legal or medical problems, he said.

“In most of these scams, the idea of getting so much money for doing little or nothing is enticing to most people who do it,” Reyes said. “There is not ever going to be a job where you get something for nothing.”

One indication of these scams are misspellings in the letter or e-mail, Reyes said. Words can get misspelled in the translation when the scam is from overseas. If money is required to be sent overseas, the job or sweepstakes may not be legitimate, he said.

Reyes encourages anyone who receives any kind of check in this way to go to a bank or the police department to check for authenticity. The victim of the scam can also face charges if they had knowledge that what they were doing could be wrong of fraudulent, he said, adding the charge would be forgery for cashing a fraudulent check in this scam.

Board Member Inheritance Fund

The scam targets citizens who are currently serving on public boards, commissions and councils who post information on Web sites, according to a DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office press release. Scammers browse Web sites scanning names, home addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses and photos. The scammer will e-mail the board member asking for additional information to process a bogus inheritance fund through the Central Bank of Nigeria.

A DeKalb County Board member’s personal information and photo was obtained from DeKalb County’s Web site and was e-mailed to his computer in this scam. The board member recognized the tactic as a scam and reported the incident to the sheriff’s office.

Jury Duty Summon

The FBI reported to the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office a scam involving a telephone caller claiming to be a jury coordinator. The scammer calls the victim about missing a jury summons and eventually asks for the victim’s social security number and date of birth to cancel the warrant.

The scam is an identity theft and has been reported in 11 states, including Illinois, according to the release. Legitimate businesses do not solicit by phone, and citizens should never provide personal information to any caller, regardless of how official or convincing they may sound, according to the release.