The  Benton County Sheriff’s office has received three reports of attempted scams in the Vinton area today. Calls are being received stating that they have placed second in the Publisher Clearing House Sweepstakes. They are requesting that the people wire money to them to cover the processing costs. The requests have ranged from $200.00 to $1000.00. The numbers have all been an 1-876-xxx-xxxx numbers. These calls have been reported to have originated in Jamaica. It appears that these numbers have been used in attempted scams as far back as January of this year. A reminder that legitimate operations do not use techniques of this type. Anytime anyone asks for money to be wired to accept or claim prizes, extreme caution should be taken to continue the conversation. Most of time the caller is not only attempting to get money wired, but to also gain bank and personal information. Information of these types of calls should be reported to law enforcement.