Every decade we warn you about scams that can surface during the time when legitimate Census documents come to your house. Scammers have been known to use their own bogus mailings to get your private information.

When a viewer contacted 7News wondering if the documents she got in the mail this past month were really from the Census Bureau, we went in search of answers.

The last thing Joann Crowe from Williamston S.C. expected to get in the mail this year was a Census survey. After all, it’s not 2020.

“When I got it and saw it, I immediately thought, well this is a scam,” she said.

And Crowe certainly didn’t expect to see wording like this “You are required by law to respond to this survey.”

The flood of documents, four mailings in just a few weeks, put on the pressure to find out the truth, and fast.

“It says you can be penalized if you don’t,” said Crowe, reading from one of the documents.

“The census form asked a lot of questions about your name, your age, your birthdate, financial information, mortgage information, loan information, how long you’ve lived in a place. A lot of information that a pretty sophisticated scam could use and hurt you with,” said Crowe.

7News confirmed, beyond the population data the agency collects every decade, it does 130 surveys each year. One of its largest, The American Community Survey, is the very one Crowe got in the mail.

To make sure your mailing is legitimate visit the census site here for a list of active surveys.

Or you can find your regional office contact number here to verify by phone that your house was selected.

“I have not found anyone who knows that the census is done more often than every 10 years,” said Crowe.

She is now spreading the word, since she was finally able to confirm her house was indeed selected.

“And according to their information it should take you 40 minutes. Guess what, I’m thinking it’s going to take a little more than 40 minutes,” she said, shuffling through the large survey packet.

The Census Bureau, is not a policing agency, but it encourages full participation in the surveys. That information generates data that helps determine how more than four-hundred billion dollars in federal and state funds are distributed each year.