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In the letter, she was instructed to deposit the funds into her bank account and then send a Moneygram for $2,985 to Andrew Johnson in Ontario, in order to pay the taxes on the full winnings, which total $85,000.
At first, when she opened the letter, Arth was excited, she said. She thought perhaps a vacation or extra mortgage payments were in her future.
But then she reconsidered.
"There's so much out there anymore; you have to be leery," she said.
Plus, "You don't buy a lottery ticket; you're not going to win," she said, and she hadn't bought one.
After a quick Google search of the company name, Arth found a few newspaper articles discussing the scam. She called the company to inquire about the offer, and they asked her to call back after making the deposit.
Then she called the Missouri attorney general's office, who said they'd heard of the problem but couldn't take action because it originates in Canada. The office advised Arth to contact her local media outlets.
"I need to let everyone I know know this," she said.
According to the Federal Trade Commission, scammers contact potential victims via the telephone, as well as through the mail. On its Web site, the FTC points out that, even if the lottery scams were real, responding would be illegal.
"These lottery solicitations violate U.S. law, which prohibits the cross-border sale or purchase of lottery tickets by phone or mail," the site says. "If you play a foreign lottery -- through the mail or over the telephone -- you're violating federal law."
Although Arth is a bit disappointed not to be $80,000 richer, she feels good about informing her fellow Saline County residents and hopes anyone else who receives the letter will not be hoodwinked.
"This is worth more -- keeping people from getting hurt around the holidays," she said.
Contact Sydney Stonner at marshallbusiness@socket.net
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theres some other scams people may not be aware of. Three times i have placed adds to get rid of dogs through the petfinder site i found in this paper. i would get many offers to buy my dog for many thousands of dollars. then they would send me checks, the last one was for 4500 bucks n i was told to cash the check n they would send someone to pick up n ship the pet. I always said money orders and tried to get the personal info n they just sent a check. Ussualy from a big company this last one was from a yamaha dealership. I ripped them up n threw them away n emailed the person back that i knew this was a scam.
I have never had so many try to scam me by advertising a dog through the petfinder site done through the marshall animal shelter. do not advertise your pets here ever.
Ok these things are getting on my nerves, and no not for the reason you think. It's getting on my nerves because it boggles my mind how a person can be lacking the common sense to take any of these lottery scams seriously. Kudos to Mrs. Arth for spotting this and warning people, but did she really even need to do research to know it was fake? A check from Canada saying you've won the lottery when you haven't even bought a ticket in the US, come on now just rip it up and trash it like you do any other piece of junk mail. Even if a person thinks the check is ligit, the fact they want you to deposit it and send them money back DON'T BE STUPID!!! When you win a scratcher ticket they don't ask you to give them $2 back, when you win at the boat they don't ask you to give them $10 back to varify anything.
Be mad at the scammers, they need to be shut down yes, but at the same time lets not be to sympathetic for people who are either too greedy or too stupid to see an OBVIOUS scam!