Pat Wiles smelled something fishy when a man with a foreign accent called her at home recently with great news — she’d won nearly $400,000 from Publishers Clearing House.

To collect her prize, all Wiles had to do was tell the man where she did her banking, then set up a meeting to collect the check.

And there was just one more thing: She’d need to provide a credit card number to cover 1 percent — Publishers Clearing House would pay the other 99 percent, the caller said — of federal taxes on the winnings.

Her part amounted to more than $500, but what a bargain.

That fishy smell got downright rotten. Instead of collecting her information and calling the man back as he instructed, Wiles called Publishers Clearing House.

“And they told me in no uncertain terms that if you ever win anything … if it’s less than $10,000, they send it to you in registered mail,” she said. “If it’s more than that, the Prize Patrol comes to your house and gives it to you.”

Then she did call the man with the foreign accent back, and she told him the jig was up, “that I knew it was a scam.”

Wiles’ story of an attempted scam is one of a multitude that happen every day around Rowan County and beyond. And the schemes take as many different forms as there are criminals trying to perpetrate them. They might claim to be from the IRS or a charity. They might claim to represent an organization with money for the victim. They might even claim to be a relative.

Frauds like these cost North Carolinians millions of dollars each year.

To help local residents identify potential scams and avoid falling prey to them, Oak Park Retirement will host a presentation at 2 p.m. Tuesday led by Caroline Farmer, deputy director of the Victims and Citizens Section at the N.C. Department of Justice.

It’s one of the free educational programs Attorney General Roy Cooper’s office provides across the state to help seniors and other consumers protect themselves against these types of crimes.

It’s important knowledge to have because, as Wiles said, “when they call, they sound very convincing.”

She even got a call a week later from a man saying he was from customer service with Publishers Clearing House, that he understood someone had tried to scam her using the company’s name and wanted to make it up to her with a prize.

The caller’s phone number? The same one the scammer used the first time.

The presentation Tuesday is open to the public. Oak Park Retirement is at 548 White Oak Drive, Salisbury.