Tis the season for Christmas carols, holiday shopping, and scam phone calls.

Scammers work all year long, but seem to especially target individuals around the holidays. Much of the time, the scammers know personal information about their target or sound convincing, which leads people to fall for the con and lose money.

Local resident Charles Blair said he was recently a target of a prize scam. Blair said he received a phone call from someone claiming to be from Mega Millions.

They said they were similar to Publisher’s Clearing House and told Blair he had won $19 million, but there was a catch.

The scammer told Blair not to hang up the phone and drive to Walmart. The scammers told him to go into Walmart, not talk to anyone, and get $500 in gift cards and then they would meet him at his house with a check in a few hours.

To add insult to injury, the scammers asked Blair about what he planned to do with the money. Blair told him he was going to give his family members each a large portion of the $19 million. He then told the scammer he also had a really good friend at the Sheriff ’s Department and the scammer immediately hung up.

“Before I could even finish my sentence the phone went click,” said Blair.

Blair wants to get the word out so no one falls for the scam.

Prize Scams have been going on for years. The Consumer Trade Commission lists some signs that you are involved in a prize scam.

The first sign is you have to pay in order to collect your prize. If they ask you to pay by wiring money, sending cash, paying with gift cards or cryptocurrency to get your prize, it is a scam. Scammers use these payments because it is hard to track the money and it is nearly impossible to get it back.

The second sign of a prize scam is if they say paying will increase your odds of winning. Real sweepstakes are free and people win by chance. It is illegal for someone to ask you to pay to increase your chances at winning and only a scammer will do that.

The third sign is if they ask for financial information. There is no reason to ever give your bank account or credit card number in order to claim a prize or sweepstakes. If they ask for that information, it is a scam.

Another scam making the rounds lately is a call claiming to be a loved one in need of money because they are in some sort of trouble.

The scammers even know personal information such as the loved one’s name and target family members. The key indicator this is a scam is when they ask for a gift card as payment.

Law enforcement officials say to never give out personal information over the phone if an unknown caller contacts you because you can never be sure of the identity of the caller. Scam calls can be reported to the Federal Trade Commission at (877) 3824357.