Ignore $500 Savings Bond Offer, D.A. Says

The Ventura County district attorney’s office is warning parents to ignore rumors that they can get a $500 savings bond by sending copies of their children’s birth certificates and Social Security numbers to a Minnesota address.

The rumor, which appears to have originated on the Internet, links the $500 savings bond to the supposed settlement of a lawsuit against a major baby-food company, said Robin Estes, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s Consumer Mediation Unit.

Although such a lawsuit was settled in 1996, the deadline for the modest refunds resulting from the suit was Jan. 31, she said.

“We just started getting calls about the issue in this area,” Estes said. “A local private school sent home fliers describing the $500 rebate as fact, so we decided to issue a consumer alert and let people know this isn’t true.”

About 2,000 letters have been arriving each day at a post office box in Minneapolis, which has since been closed, officials said. Mail is being returned to the sender. Letters without return addresses are being shredded.

The false information appears to be a simple error compounded by the Internet’s ability to disperse information instantaneously, Estes said.

It is not part of a scam to collect Social Security numbers for identity theft, she said. “We’re hoping we can keep people in this area from getting false information,” Estes said.