JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – There's another scam making it's way around the Jacksonville area, this one shows up in your email.
It's a notice claiming to be from a customs agent working with the FBI. The email states they have some property that belongs to you that you need to collect immediately. According to Tom Stephens, president of the Better Business Bureau of Northeast Florida, this is a classic scam.
Recommended Videos
"Something from customs is not going to fall out of the sky with your name on it. If you didn't order it, it's probably fake," Stephens said.
Stephens said what the person is likely trying to do is get you to pay a fake tax.
"As soon as you get in contact with them," Stephens said, "they will tell you that they will release the property to you but you have to pay the customs fee of several hundred dollars," he explained.
We wanted to see what the person behind this letter would tell us or ask us for so we wrote back and requested a phone number. They gave us a number with a Virginia area code. We called several times but no one ever answered.
Stephens said what you should do if you get an email like this; delete it.
"Ignore it," Stephens added. "And this one supposedly came from the FBI so I'm thinking the person would want to go to the FBI's website and see if they have a history of this type of scam."
We checked and this scam was not listed on the FBI's website but they have several other scams listed that are worth checking out. The link to their webpage for scam alerts is fbi.gov/scams-safety/e-scams.
One more piece of advice from Stephens, don't try and call suspected scammers like we did. They can likely see the number you're calling from and could try to scam you over the phone in other ways in the future.