Imagine receiving a phone call one afternoon from an unfamiliar voice notifying you that you are due $12,218. Adding to your suspicion, they say they want to present you with the money at a public check ceremony.

This is the call Karla Houston received this past February. She was sitting in her doctor’s waiting room, her husband beside her.

“My husband whisper-yelled, ‘This is a scam! Hang up! This is a scam!” which is obviously the explanation that makes the most sense,” recalled Houston, who works in the Transportation Safety Department at Louisiana State University. “But, also, part of me wondered, 'What if it’s real?’”

Sympathetic to her wariness, the mysterious caller encouraged Houston to contact the State Treasurer’s office.

When she did, Houston learned she was owed money from

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