Woman finds lottery win too good to be true

$50,000 prize from foreign company is a common mail and e-mail scam.

When the letter announcing a big lottery prize arrived in her mailbox last month, Dene Drury was, to make an understatement, skeptical.

Still, she called the telephone number listed in the letter. A $50,000 prize was hers, said a man who spoke with a heavy accent and called himself Robert Williams. All she had to do, Williams said, was pay a "clearance fee" and his company, International Lottery Promotions, would send the money.

The company's main office is in Australia, the letter said. "According to Federal and International Law, prize winnings are released as soon as your Clearance Fee is paid," the letter stated.

The clearance fee, however, could be paid out of the lottery winnings after she received a check, Williams told Drury over the telephone. OK, she said, send the check.

The check arrived Friday, Drury said. A $3,850 check in a Federal Express envelope sent from Florida. The check itself, however, was in an envelope with a New York postmark.

And the check was drawn on the Santa Barbara Bank and Trust in California.

After visiting her bank and making a few phone calls, Drury said, it was clear the whole thing was a cleverly crafted scam.

The lottery letter scam has generated numerous complaints to the Consumer Protection Division of the Missouri attorney general's office, spokesman Jim Gardner said. Drury's case is typical, he said, praising her for not believing she could get something for nothing.

Fraudulent check

She called Robert Williams to tell him she got the check. He was anxious that she deposit it, she said, and send $3,650 by wire transfer to a man named Lynn Langley in New York. Once that was done, he told her, the rest of the money would be on its way.

That would be a bad idea, security officers at Santa Barbara Bank and Trust Company told her. "I was told that if I deposit the check, I won't know that it is bad until three or four weeks later when the money is taken back out of the account because the check is a fraud."

The check has accurate bank routing numbers and appears legitimate. But everything else about the scam is phony, Drury said she was told. The scammers are even using Court TV's FedEx account number to send the checks, she said she was told by the bank security officers.

Santa Barbara Bank representatives either wouldn't talk about the scam or didn't return telephone calls seeking comment.

The foreign lottery scam is common, Gardner said. In addition to regular mail, it is perpetrated via e-mail, much like the scams claiming to be from deposed foreign government leaders, especially from Nigeria, seeking help to gain access to millions of dollars in frozen assets.

Another growing scam is e-mails being sent to warn users of on-line banking services that someone has attempted to access their accounts, Gardner said. Those con artists set up look-alike Internet sites that ask customers to enter bank and credit card information in the name of protecting them.

"A well-educated consumer is the best weapon to combat this type of fraud," Gardner said.

The Consumer Fraud Division investigates all complaints about such scams, but they are difficult to prosecute when they are outside the United States, he said.

"If there is anything involving a foreign lottery, that should throw up a red flag immediately," Gardner said.

A processing fee also should be a warning, Gardner said. Lotteries don't require people to pay money to collect their winnings.

And a lottery that a consumer hasn't entered by a direct action wouldn't make contact, he said.

Going public with what she discovered is a way to warn others who are being duped by the same scam.

"I don't want this to happen to anyone," she said. "I can't believe people take advantage of people like this."