(File Photo of Scam Alert Background Photo)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Harrisburg, PA) A scam has been recently going around in which the Shapiro administration has been recently telling Pennsylvanians to avoid. A reported scam was identified when the scammer pretended to be an employee for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. They are assisted by a fake email to make older Pennsylvanians pay through an inheritance that is a fraud and licensed financial institutions. According to a release from the the Pennsylvania Insurance Department (PID), Pennsylvania Department of Aging, Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities (DoBS), and the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP), here are some ways to protect yourself from these scams:

• Don’t respond to suspicious emails or texts;
• Don’t trust messages about winning money or getting an inheritance from someone you do not know;
• Do not feel pressured to act quickly or in secrecy;
• Check email addresses. Scammers can spoof emails, sending an email that looks like it is from a trusted source. Official emails from Pennsylvania state agencies always end in @pa.gov;
• Watch out for fake websites. Official Pennsylvania Commonwealth websites end in pa.gov and will always display the Commonwealth logo with the text “Official website of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” on the top left corner of a web page; and know that Pennsylvania agencies will not threaten immediate legal action or license suspension without proper notice.