Recently, Selma residents have been receiving suspicious calls from persons claiming to be representatives of Publishers Clearinghouse.

After some phone calls and web research, one local family discovered the calls to be a scam based out of White Plains, N.Y.

Fortunately, the family did their homework and avoided any problems. However, Selma Chief of Police William T. Riley said others aren’t so lucky.

Spring, he said, creates a hotbed of activity for con artists.

“A lot of people running scams know that it is tax season and some households will have more money coming in,” he said. “This is the season that people really have to be careful because there will be a lot of calls like that and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

Verifying their phone numbers to callers, Riley said, can be a big mistake if the recipient isn’t sure who is on the other line. Because of cloning technology, Riley said the number could be captured and used to steal a person’s identity.

In many cases, Riley said the only thing credit card companies and other services need for verification is a telephone number. Once the number is provided, all other information is an open book.

When these calls are received, Riley said, the caller shouldn’t be the one seeking information.

“Don’t give out any personal information at all unless you know who you are talking too,” he said. “You should be the one asking the questions like if they have a callback number, the name of their supervisor and an extension for their supervisor’s supervisor and you can be polite about it. You can’t ask too many questions.”

Riley also advises people to provide limited information on Facebook and other social networking sites.

“A lot of these things are just phishing scams and they can be successful because people provide them with all the information they need,” he said. “It’s even worse on social networks because people will have their exact birthdates. Then they can call a credit card company or something like that and a lot of times all they need to verify that they are that person is a phone number.”

Information is also available through the Alabama Better Business Bureau at (205) 558-2239 or e-mailing info@centralalabama.bbb.org.