Lottery scam imitates popular sweepstakes
The fake lottery scam that has bilked residents of the Hudson Valley and elsewhere out of thousands of dollars, has now been expanded to capitalize on the name and reputation of Publishers Clearing House.
Typically a person receives a letter telling him or her that they have won a multi-million dollar lottery, but first they must cash an enclosed check and send a money-gram for that amount back to the company. Once an unsuspecting person deposits the check, buys a money-gram and mails it back ...
Oct 21, 2008, 9:57 am - - Lottery News forum
Nine Israelis arrested for US lottery scam
US federal agents and Israeli police arrested nine Israelis in Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan on Friday on charges that they bilked New Yorkers out of more than $2 million through a lottery telemarketing scam.
They are accused of cold-calling people in New York from a boiler-room operation in Ramat Gan and asking them to wire as much as $40,000 to Israel to claim nonexistent international sweepstakes prizes.
The ring targeted senior citizens, who were told that the calls were coming from a New Yor ...
Sep 28, 2008, 6:42 pm - - Lottery News forum
D.C. fines lottery operator $1.4M in ticket scam
GTECH Corp., the operator of many government lotteries worldwide, was fined $1.4 million by the District of Columbia this month over charges that its subcontractors or a partner firm hacked into the district's lottery system and printed winning tickets for themselves two years ago.
The fine, which GTECH calls a blatantly political move, comes as the firm is locked in a long battle to retain the New Jersey contract it has held for more than two decades.
GTECH and its Washington, D.C., partn ...
Sep 26, 2008, 9:56 am - - Lottery News forum
Wardens probed over Kenyan prisoners' lottery scam
Kenya's prison officers are at the center of an investigation over their involvement in a SMS (Short Message Service) syndicate that defrauded the public through nonexistent lotteries.
Last weekend, 350 mobile phones and 400 unused SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) cards were uncovered after a search of prisoners' blocks at the Kamiti Maximum Prison, and an earlier search at the Naivasha Prison uncovered 270 phones. Officers also found a register bearing the names of potential targets.
The ...
Jul 15, 2008, 9:15 pm - - Lottery News forum
Lottery scammer who later won shot, killed
A Fort Lauderdale man who once went to jail for making fake lottery tickets and then won a million-dollar prize for real died from a gunshot wound.
Anthony Soltys, convicted felon and instant millionaire, died as mysteriously as he lived.
Soltys died Friday afternoon from a gunshot wound he received the night before in Fort Lauderdale.
Police are searching for the person or persons that left him to die in the middle of Northeast Fourth Avenue, in the 1700 block.
Soltys was taken ...
Jan 20, 2008, 12:22 am - - Lottery News forum
FBI following leads in lottery scam
A Monroe, New York, man became the unwitting middleman in a sweepstakes-style international lottery scam that had the potential of bilking tens of thousands of dollars from its victims, police said.
Monroe police Detective Jim Frankild worked with Warminster, Pa., police to investigate the scam, which, according to Frankild, went like this: A con man calls an elderly Warminster woman and tells her that she's the second-place winner of the Canadian lottery, even though she never played. The vi ...
Jan 9, 2008, 12:20 pm - - Lottery News forum
Heartbreak: Lottery scam led to NJ grandmother's suicide
A Jamaica-based lottery scam promising a $2.5 million windfall cost Ann Mowle her entire life savings of $248,000 before the 72-year-old grandmother from Monroe decided she had enough.
Mowle donated her clothes to charity, left her beloved toy poodle Molly at a dog groomers and drove to Spring Lake on Oct. 31. A pair of fishermen found her body on the edge of a jetty at the Worthington Avenue beach the next day. Investigators determined Mowle's death was a suicide.
Mowle's family blames ...
Nov 12, 2007, 11:16 pm - - Lottery News forum
Local Iowa police report surge in lottery scam letters
At least three Marshalltown, Iowa, residents have been targeted by a bogus check scam in the last two weeks, according to Marshalltown Police Chief Lon Walker.
A resident last week and two this week each received letters from companies in Canada saying they had won hundreds of thousands of dollars in a contest or lottery, along with a check to help cover anticipated taxes.
But then the letter asks its winners to pay the couple thousand dollars in taxes out of their own pocket before rece ...
Aug 12, 2007, 9:40 am - - Lottery News forum
Couple nearly victims of lottery scam
A Francestown, New Hampshire, couple already living on the edge came close to financial ruin after almost getting sucked into what authorities suspect was a foreign lottery scam.
We thought the check was our answer to a lot of prayers, said Susan Gadwah, who received notice through the mail last week she was a $450,000 winner in a Canadian lottery, along with a check for $4,700 to cover non-Canadian residency tax deducted from her winnings.
When she went to a Goffstown branch of Bank o ...
Jul 30, 2007, 10:53 am - - Lottery News forum
Lottery scams hard to resist for some
What if you got home today and found a letter in your mailbox telling you that you won thousands of dollars in a Canadian lottery?
It sounds like great news, but it's actually a scam that's costing Americans millions of dollars every year.
Too Good To Be True
This is the scam we get the most calls and e-mails about. And it's very convincing because the letter comes with a check that looks real.
So a Pennsylvania TV news crew went to Canada to find out how the scam works and where you ...
Jun 27, 2007, 10:46 pm - - Lottery News forum
