The primary way to defeat the Coronavirus pandemic is through enough people becoming vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.  Health officials have indicated that 70% of the population would be required to be vaccinated to reach this important goal.  Unfortunately, although the vaccines have proven to be both safe and effective, there are a number of people who, for a variety of reasons, have chosen not to be vaccinated.  As an incentive to increasing the number of people vaccinated, the state of Ohio, creatively came up with a lottery they call the Vax-a Million lottery to provide people who choose to be vaccinated with a free opportunity to participate in a lottery to win a million dollars.  So far the response has been very good.  Unfortunately, scammers, as should have been expected, are taking advantage of interest in the Vax-a Million lottery and, posing as Ohio Lottery officials, are contacting people, even those not in Ohio, attempting to scam people out of information  such as their Social Security number that can be used to make the person a victim of identity theft. Some scammers are also asking for credit card numbers or bank account numbers in order to qualify for the lottery.  The scammers are contacting their targeted victims through emails, text messages or social media.

TIPS

First and foremost, the Ohio Lottery is not contacting people by emails, text messages, phone calls or social media to sign up for the lottery.  The only way to enter the Vax-a-Million lottery is either online at https://ohiovaxamillion.com/ or by phone at 1-833-427-5634.  In order to enter the lottery you will need to provide basic contact information and your date of birth as well as information about your vaccination status, but you are not required to provide your Social Security number, bank account number or credit card number to enter the lottery.

For those of you receiving the Scam of the day through an email, I just want to remind you that if you want to see the ever increasing list of Coronavirus scams go to the first page of the http://www.scamicide.com website and click on the tab at the top of the page that indicates “Coronavirus Scams.”  Scamicide has been cited by the New York Times as one of three top sources for information about Coronavirus related scams.

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