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Rae Gardner of Florence received a phone call back in May with news she had won the Jamaican lottery.

"I'd won an outstanding Mercedes-Benz. I could choose the color I wanted and I'd get $1.5 million," Gardner explained.

She was told that she just had to wire some cash in order to claim her winnings.

Several months later, Gardner had wired 22 transactions, totalling more than $10,000, only to find out she had been had.

She recalled, "I thought for sure, this would be the for sure thing that I could help my children, as well as anybody in the community."

Although such scams are becoming more and more common, the Better Business Bureau says there are ways to protect you and your family.

Chelsea Dannen of the BBB said, "You should never have to pay someone because they are pressuring you into buying anything. A legitimate business, a legitimate person, a legitimate lottery, whatever it is, they will let you research them and get back to them at another time."

The BBB warns that scammers are persistent, but there are ways to fend them off according to Dannen, who said, "Register with the do not call registry, with the FTC and then if you keep getting persistent calls, call your phone provider, your home phone or cell phone provider and you should be able to block specific phone numbers."

Con artists prey on older folks and use tactics to pull at heart strings; Gardner said, "They even prayed with me, they claimed they went to church every Sunday."

Gardner admits she shouldn't have been so trusting, but it's a pricey lesson to have learned: "I should have never believed anything they said."

Dannen says at least when one uses a credit card, there is an electronic trail and sometimes you can contest the transaction. But in Gardner's case, she's at a total loss,

"There's no one she can call for help at this point. She can't contact her bank, because she willingly gave it away, there's no service she can challenge. It's gone from the country. It's gone," Dannen said.

Visit the MT Department of Justice "Scam Alert" page to learn more about protecting yourself from scams.