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Lottery Scams

"A letter landed on your mat this morning with some great news for you - your numbers have come up! You've won a substantial sum of money in a lottery. All you have to do to claim the money is to pay an arrangement fee, usually between $3,000 to $5,000. You send the money, but no windfall follows."
 
Lottery frauds are becoming prevalent in the UK with promises of huge winnings arriving in the form of unsolicited e-mail or letters to UK residents.
 
Invariably the communication will purport to come from an overseas lottery and claim that the recipient has been allocated winning numbers. The recipient will contact the organisers, whether directly through telephone, by post or e-mail and will be invited to send money in to assist in the administration for the release of the winnings.
 
These winnings do not exist. This is merely a scam and attempt to elicit money from unsuspecting victims. As the winnings on offer are substantial, so too can be the advance fees required to release the funds. The real cruel part of this scam is that suspects will build up a rapport with victims through telephone contact in order to continue the flow of money.

Who are the victims?

In the case of e-mail anyone can be a victim. These spam e-mails are sent en-bloc and anyone can become a potential victim.
 
With letters the criminals can be a little more specific and in many cases the elderly are most at risk. Suspects pay good money for mailing lists and they do target those lists that deal with the elderly. Hard copy letters complete with certificates of winnings will be sent to the unsuspecting victim. On the face of it these look genuine.
 
The victim may respond and, after sending a fee to the fraudsters, may have telephone contact. The fraudsters will gain the confidence of the victim, hence where the elderly are most at risk. Communications are often sent to drop or P.O. Box addresses. These are then collected by couriers or third parties and sent on to the fraudsters, in most cases overseas.
 
Payments are made through cheques, credit / debit card transactions or through sending cash via money transfer services. Cheques can be cleared through international clearing services and the money will go through a series of further transactions before finally arriving in the pockets of the fraudsters.

Who are behind these scams?

Invariably highly organised gangs based overseas are behind these frauds. It is widely acknowledged that there area large number of Canadian syndicates involved, specifically targeting the USA and UK.
The Canadian authorities are taking the threat very seriously and have put major resources into tackling the problem. Criminal networks taken down in the past have uncovered huge lists of victims, showing how much they have paid, when they were last contacted and when they are due to be contacted again.

Case Scenario

An elderly couple in London, both in their nineties, went into their bank and wished to draw out in excess of £20,000. When asked why they told the bank they had won money in an overseas lottery and were paying some fees to release the money.
 
The bank advised them that this was a fraud and tried to deter them from drawing out the money. The couple demanded that unless the bank allowed them to draw the money, they would close their account and take their business elsewhere.
 
The bank contacted the fraud squad and a manager from the bank together with a detective visited the couple to convince them that this was a scam. The couple were adamant that their luck had changed and that this was a genuine lottery. Had they not eventually been deterred, the loss of their life savings would have been a severe blow.

What to do in the event of receiving an unsolicited communication

If you receive these communications do not answer it. You can report these communications to the Enquiries Unit at the Office of Fair Trading.
 
Enforcement teams within the Office of Fair Trading work with the Canadian Authorities to collect evidence. The Canadian Authorities can use this evidence to prosecute the fraudsters.
 
Although the OFT cannot take up cases on behalf of individuals or give individual advice, anybody who has received a phone call and/or sent money to the Canadian lottery can report it to OFT and help put a stop to the scam by calling 08457 224499.

Click here to read an example of a Lottery Scam letter.

See also:

• E-mail Scams
    
• Money Transfer Fraud 

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