Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald has issued a consumer alert based on reports that scam artists are attempting to contact New Hampshire citizens seeking personal banking information.

Recent news of a New Hampshire winner of a significant lottery prize has given rise to increasing attempts by scam artists to trick unsuspecting residents into providing sensitive personal information. The Attorney General's Office has received reports of email, phone and text messages being sent to random citizens pretending to be a representative of the lottery winner. The scam messages go on to falsely claim that the citizen is the beneficiary of a large amount of money from the lottery winner and then asks for the person's banking information. In some instances, the scam messages provide the name and email address of a New Hampshire law firm.

These are all attempts to trick people into giving over sensitive personal information. The Attorney General cautions everyone in the State to carefully guard their personal information, such as social security number, date of birth, banking account numbers or credit card numbers, and to never provide that information in response to unsolicited phone calls, emails or text messages.

If you are the recipient of an email, phone call or text message promising a share in lottery winnings, do not respond to those messages. If you do accept one of these calls, do not engage the caller. Simply hang up.

If you have questions about one of these calls, you can call the Attorney General's Consumer Information line at 888-468-4454.