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Rite-Aid scam: Phony sweepstakes lures elderly woman

Rite-Aid scam: A Pennsylvania woman was told to buy a $500 Rite-Aid card to cover taxes on her winnings. Rite-Aid does offer store cards, but the caller used the information to access her bank.

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Keith Bedford/Reuters/File
A shopper exits a Rite-Aid store in New York, June 23, 2010. Rite-Aid alerted authorities that an elderly woman in Pennsylvania was scammed by a caller using Rite-Aid's name.
  • By Associated Press

| KITTANNING, Pa.

tate police are warning western Pennsylvanians of a scam involving a phony sweepstakes in which callers tell victims they've won money through the Rite-Aid drug store chain.

Troopers from the Kittanning barracks say they've been alerted by Rite-Aid officials that the scam targeting an elderly western Pennsylvania woman on Saturday has happened in other areas, too.

Police say a caller from a phone number that has since been traced to Jamaica told the woman she had won $18,000 but had to purchase a "green dot card" for $500 to cover the taxes on her winnings. The cards are pay-in-advance devices that Rite-Aid customers can use legitimately like a debit card but which, in this case, was used to access the woman's money.

Nobody has been arrested in the western Pennsylvania case.

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