A new type of lottery fraud has been reported in Austintown, Ohio as described by the local newspaper.
Initially the victim cannot see a scam at all and believes he or she has received an unexpected windfall. One Austintown woman opened her mail to discover a cheque for $1985 from an organisation called the ‘Global Lotto Commission.’
There was a letter with the cheque and it informed the lady that she had won a share of a $125,000 lottery jackpot. To take the process further she was to call a particular number and speak to a named person in the organisation. The lady receiving the letter was fortunately smart enough not to ring the number given but instead took the letter to the authorities.
The Global Lotto Commission is a well-used cover for many scams and of course does not exist.
Some recipients of the letter and money would have cashed the cheque thinking nothing could go wrong. Of course this is not true; if anyone rings the number they would be instructed to forward a share of the money using a money transfer company in order to cover ‘administration ltobet charges.’ The cheque will then be discovered to be invalid by the bank and the victim will have sent his or her own money to the thieves.
Camelot, the administrators of the British National Lottery, and other legitimate lottery organizations know just how prevalent the scams are becoming so they are trying to make it widely known that nobody should give money or information to the scams and to understand what bogus communications look like. The scammers want either your personal information or your money.
On their website the British National Lottery administrators provide information useful to everyone and it is applicable to any of the global lotteries. There are certain guidelines that are getting well known now but are always worth communicating.
None of the legitimate lottery organizations will contact a player who has won a prize in a draw. It is the responsibility of any winner to contact them to show their winning ticket and claim their prize.