Crooks usually don’t get their own holidays, but I’m declaring last week International Lottery Fraud Week.
If you’re a lottery fraud crook, contact me and I’ll give you a wonderful proclamation and a special plaque. But of course I’ll first need a security fee of $2,500 and detailed information about your bank accounts.
But wait. I’m getting ahead of the story.
Bill Cooper of Everett called me last week to say he’d just gotten a phone call from a couple guys who said they were with the Global Sweepstakes Authority. The guys, Robert Smith and Brian Goldberg, gave Cooper the happy news — he’d won $350,000.
All he needed to do, the callers said, was to send $2,200 through Western Union to Costa Rica. They promised the money, intended to be used as a security deposit, would be refunded the next day when he received that big prize.
And they didn’t want Bill to tell anybody about his big winnings. There are crooks out there, they said, who might want to take it.
Good thing Bill knew who the real crooks were.
"I knew it had to be a scam,: he said, "Why would you send money to Costa Rica if you’re in the United States. There would be no way I could go there and get my money back."
The next morning, I came in and Diana Hefley, one of our ace police reporters, handed me a letter that had been passed along to her. It was from "the desk of the managing director" of Elgordo Loteria Primitiva telling the recipient that he had received $615,000 from the Spanish lottery.
The deal was similar to that offered to Bill, only there was no security deposit requested. Instead, they wanted detailed banking account information so they could transfer the money.
Of course, what they really do is use the information to clean out your bank account.
A few minutes after Diana passed along the lottery letter, I started weeding out my e-mail.
And guess what. Awed International BV had sent me an e-mail letting me know that: "Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 89-02897893, with serial number 95020 drew the lucky numbers 14-21-33-42-49-63, and consequently won the lottery in the 1st category."
I didn’t win as much as Diana’s friend, but the e-mail guarantees I "have been approved of the lump sum payout of US$500,000. This is from the Scientific Game Promo Lottery from The Netherlands, so they must have thought it was important to let me know that they were talking about U.S. dollars.
They didn’t come right out and ask for money, but they did say that I would be required "to procure an affidavit of lotto claim papers/court clearance certificate from the court prior to award payment policy of the gaming board of Netherland." So I figure that’s where they either ask for some dough or some banking info.
I’m declaring last week Lottery Fraud Week because this was the hat trick — I got to see an e-mail scam, a phone scam and a letter scam all within a couple of days.
The Federal Trade Commission says lottery scams are real popular, either those that try to sell you tickets for a foreign lottery or those like these three examples, where you’re supposedly a winner of a lottery you didn’t even enter.
The Elgordo letter and my Dutch e-mail are common rip-offs where you’ll be prodded to pay for administrative costs and/or to supply financial information.
I did an Internet search on lottery scams and came up with letters virtually identical to the ones I have.
If you get such a call, letter or e-mail, don’t respond to it.
Legitimate lotteries don’t ask for money in advance. And you should never provide personal identity or personal finance information to people you do not know.
Unless you’re a lottery crook. Then you should send me a check for $2,500. After I’ve cashed it, I’ll send you that lovely plaque.
Mike Benbow: 425-339-3459; benbow@heraldnet.com.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
