New lottery scam
Saturday February 13th 2010Time and time again we hear of people falling victim to lottery scams and despite constant warnings, many people still remain vulnerable. Various news agencies in the US have been publishing the details of a new lottery scam that has claimed many victims already. The lottery scam is fraudulently using the name of the organization, Better Business Bureau to enable them steal tens of thousands of dollars from unsuspecting victims who are being led to believe that they have won a lottery prize, with one victim losing $80,000.
Those that have been approached and reported the scam say that they have been contacted via email or telephone by the lottery scammers, who claim to be from the Better Business Bureau. The victims of this lottery scam are being told that they are winners of a lottery prize and that in order to claim they will need to wire the related federal taxes in advance to be able to make their claim. Some also lead their victims into a false sense of security by sending a check for the lottery prize with instructions to deposit the check into their account wire a proportion of the money back to cover the taxes. The check will initially clear and the victim will then wire this money, but once the check is discovered to be fake, the funds are withdrawn from the victims account and the lottery scammer has their money.
Obviously many people are vulnerable in the current economic climate and lottery scams such as these lead those people who are struggling to think that this is the answer to their problems, when in fact is makes them very much worse.
The general rule of thumb is, you should not have to pay money to receive a lottery prize and generally you will need to buy lottery tickets to win a prize. If you are approached by anyone who seems suspicious, report it immediately to the relevant authorities.