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Costa Rica Scams

Whenever you get a phone call where money transfer and Costa Rica are being mentioned together, hang up.
You do not want to go any further.
Costa Rica is a scammer´s haven.
You have so many call centers here and many are running reputable programs such as the Gallup surveys, but now you also have the Easy Yellow Pages scam as well as the underground ones calling sweepstakes participants to tell them that they have won $450,000.00 and in order to get the money tax free, they have to send 1 percent of that amount to themselves to Costa Rica via Moneygram or Western Union.
The employees of those call centers have connections in both, so with simply the transfer number they will be able to get that money which you have sent to yourself to Costa Rica.
The soliciters will also give you a toll free number to call a government official to verify the information, and needless to say, it is usually a Costa Rica citizen who has been raised in the U.S., is very good with words and will fool you into believing that you are talking to somebody who is legit.
So when you get a phone call about having won money and Costa Rica and money transfers are involved, do not continue further.
The operators of those centers have contacts in the OIJ (Costa Rican version of the FBI), which will tip them off about having to raid their shop within 3 days.
The employees will immediately move everything to a different location.
Report the toll free number given to you, so that you can help others save their money if they do not let their brain control their actions and are getting too excited about an amount they didn´t win and waste almost 5k instead.
Many of the scammed individuals are too embarrassed to report it while others are being scammed again and again and there are reportedly some who have been sending money on a monthly basis in order to get the big prize.