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Lotto scam sees some elderly consumers lose life savings

January 17, 2010 by admin  
Filed under News, News-Banking

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There are many different scams in circulation at present, with the economic climate and recession having seen the number of scams in circulation rise and the number of people prepared to take a risk on these scams also increase. In many cases fraudsters that operate these scams target more vulnerable people such as the elderly, and this is what has been happening with a lottery scam that has seen some elderly consumers dwindled out of their life savings.

The new lottery scam is a Jamaican based one, and a number of elderly consumers have been pressurised into handing over their life savings to the operators of the scam. According to the Office of Fair Trading some people in the UK have already lost several thousand pounds to the operators of the lottery scam and there are fears that many more could fall for the scam.

As is the case with a number of similar scams victims of this particular scam have received phone calls from ‘officials’ who claim to be lawyers, lottery officials, or bank employees. They are told that they have won money on the lottery, but that they have to make a payment for the funds to be released. However, this has been followed up by more calls demanding money, and in some cases victims have even been threatened with violence and arrest.

Heather Clayton from the Office of Fair Trading stated: “We know that Jamaican-based lottery fraudsters have actively targeted US consumers in the past, but we are now beginning to see this emerge as a problem in the UK. What is despicable is that some victims have been threatened with violence to coerce them into handing over their life savings. A genuine lottery would never ask someone to pay taxes, insurance or any other fee before receiving their ‘winnings’.”

Tags: office of fair trading, Lottery, Spamming, Lottery scam, Social engineering

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