Resident almost loses $1,800

A 76-year-old Hayden Lake woman was nearly scammed after a man claiming he was Kootenai County "Sheriff Ben Wolfinger" called and confirmed she was indeed a big Publishers Clearing House winner.

According to an incident report from the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department, the woman told deputies she had been phoned multiple times Thursday morning by a man stating he is an FBI agent.

She was told she he had won $600,000 from Publishers Clearing House in 2009, but the money had been stolen and was now in Mexico.

During one of the calls, the "agent" said he was able to get her money for her and would call back with more details.

About 30 minutes later, she received another call from a man identifying himself as "Sheriff Ben Wolfinger," the incident report said.

During that call, the man identifying himself as the "sheriff" said he had been in contact with the FBI agent and that everything was "legitimate" and the agent would be calling her again shortly.

About 15 minutes later, the "agent" called back, saying she needed to send $1,800 to an address in Mexico City as an "insurance refund policy," the report said.

The FBI agent said he would call later to verify that the money was sent.

The woman contacted her son and told him of the telephone calls.

"The two started to call individuals they know to see if Sheriff Wolfinger had actually called her," the report said. Soon they contacted the sheriff's department and found out she definitely hadn't been speaking with the sheriff.

Fortunately, she never sent money to the scam artists.

This is yet another version of similar scams that have been occurring for years, where scam artists tell victims they have won money and in order to collect it they need to first pay some fees, the sheriff's department said in a news release Thursday.