City and state officials warned Colorado Springs residents on Wednesday that unknown phone calls offering secure grant loans to help with landslide issues are most likely a scam.

After record-breaking rains triggered landslides in southwest Colorado Springs last year, dozens of homeowners have put their names on a list to receive a federal buyouts for their damaged homes.

Some homeowners in the landslide areas have received calls from people claiming to be with a government entity that can offer loans to help. But those calls, which show an “unknown” number, are not coming from the city of Colorado Springs or the Colorado Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

City and state officials will contact only the homeowners who have expressed interest in the buyout program. Neither the state nor the city will require any payment from homeowners, and state officials will not contact homeowners directly.

People who receive these calls should alert the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov/complaint. The city encouraged homeowners to contact the FTC and not the police department, which will investigate only if money has been paid to the scammers.

If homeowners have given money to the scam, they should report it by calling the police’s non-emergency number at 444-7000 or at www.coloradosprings.gov. Click on “Public Safety” and then on “Report a Crime.”

Engineer Brian Hildenbrandt points Tuesday, August 11, 2015, to the home of a client down the slope from this house on Constellation Drive that has seen it’s yard slide six feet in the past month. Hildenbrandt was examining a home on Zodiac Drive Tuesday and climbed the hill to the home above to see what was causing problems with a retaining wall below. Photo by Mark Reis, The Gazette