To the valued customers of the Sun Advocate and Emery County Progress

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To the valued customers of the Sun Advocate and Emery County Progress:
Early Thursday morning a number of our advertising customers (particularly those who run classified liner ads) started receiving calls from a woman named Melissa that claimed she was a representative of the Sun Advocate and Emery County Progress and told them that they owed money for their ads. She also said that payment was due and asked them for credit card information to make the payment.
Neither of our papers – the Sun Advocate nor the Emery County Progress – have anyone calling customers asking for that information in connection with advertising. These calls are not from us or anyone affiliated with us, but from someone trying to get information from our customers they can use.
If you receive such a call, please tell them that you will contact the Sun Advocate office (435-637-0732) to discuss the issue and please do not give them any information over the phone or through email. Afterwords, please call us and let us know someone has called, and please note the following: (1) Get the calling person’s full name; (2) See if you can get a phone number off of caller ID or from them; (3) Listen to the person and determine if they have any unusual speech patterns (such as an accent).
We believe that the scammers are taking phone numbers off classified ads that are appearing on our Web site. We don’t know of anyone who has been taken in by this scam, but if you have given your information out to someone who called in the name of our newspapers, please call us and let us know.
The Price Police Department has been contacted and is investigating, but we need anyone who has come in contact with these people to call us and let us know.
Thanks for your help and cooperation.
Richard Shaw
Publisher
Emery County Progress