Albuquerque, NM – Postal Inspectors are advising New Mexico residents to be wary of anyone who claims to be a postal employee and says you’ve won a prize, or says they need your personal indentifying information. Regardless of who they say they are, never provide personal identifiers unless you initiated the call or are familiar with the business or requester.

Postal Inspectors in New Mexico have received several reports from consumers who were called by people claiming to be U.S. Postal Service employees. In one instance, the fake “postal employee” told the customer he had won a $2 million prize but needed personal information to mail the prize money. Another call had a bogus postal employee announcing that a customer’s mail delivery would be changed from morning to afternoon, then asked for the person’s personal identifiers.

“Crooks know that consumers are becoming more educated about scams, and they’re always looking for an agency or business that people trust,” said Ft. Worth Division Inspector in Charge Randall Till. “For over 200 years Postal Inspectors have ensured the safety and security of USPS, and that includes obtaining prosecution for those who use its good name to defraud others. You can be sure we will be investigating these reports to find the scammers.”

Postal Inspectors offer these tips to avoid scams:

• Never provide personal identifying information to someone over the phone if you did not initiate the call. Call the company back from a telephone number you trust – for example, the phone number listed on your credit card statement or on the back of your debit card.
• If you receive one of these calls or a similar suspicious call, report it to Postal Inspectors at 877-876-2455, option 4.

The Postal Service does not run sweepstakes or lotteries, and genuine postal employees will never call you to say you’ve won a prize. Further, if there are any significant changes in mail delivery, the Postal Service will notify customers in writing.

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About the U.S. Postal Inspection Service
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is one of the oldest federal law enforcement agencies in the country. For more than 200 years, Postal Inspectors have protected the U.S. Postal Service, secured the nation’s mail system and ensured public trust in the mail. To learn more, visit postalinspectors.uspis.gov.

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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at www.usps.com/news.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no direct support from taxpayers. With 36,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, the Postal Service relies on the sale of postage, products and services to pay for operating expenses. Named the Most Trusted Government Agency five consecutive years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $68 billion and delivers nearly half the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 28th in the 2009 Fortune 500.