| Latest Scam from Canada |
| from the Green Bay Press-Gazette, June 13, 2002 |
| One morning in May, 2 years ago, a 78-year old woman received a call that seemed too good to be true. It was. A scam artist from Canada promised to send the woman a $200,000 prize--on the condition that she send him a check for $10,000 to cover taxes on her 'winnings'. This is a common scam, and authorities say Wisconsin residents should be careful. "Wisconsin consumers, especially seniors and their adult children, should be warry of telemarking calls from Canada, " said Jim Harsdorf, secretary of the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. "More Americans are being ripped off from Toronto than any other city in the world." Fran Tryon, director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, said many Wisconsinites are being conned into sending checks by telemarketers who say they need cash in order to cover insurance or taxes on a sweepstakes or lottery prize. "Telemarketers used to operate out of places like Florida and Nevada," she said. "Now they have scurried up to Canada where it seems to be more of a safe haven." Barry Elliott, a detective with the Ontario Provincial Police, said lax Canadian laws and a lack of resources makes it difficult for officers to stop the scams. "On any given day in Canada, very conservatively, we have anywhere from 300 to 500 criminal telemarketing operations operating from coast to coast," he said. Elliott said that since 1996, 477 Wisconsinites have lost a total of $1.25 million to Canadian scams. The Green Bay wom who was told to pay $10,000 to claim her winnings instead called Green Bay police who monitored subsequent calls with the scam artist. Various con men, posing as attorneys, walked the woman through the process of mailing a cashier's check to an office in Montreal. They went through every detail, even telling the woman to place four 33-cent stamps on the envelope for return postage to the United States. But when a Green Bay police investigator came onto the line, the Canadian prize-bearers were suddenly short on facts. As the Green Bay officer tried to establish the caller's identity, the caller hung up. Whom to Call: People with information about scams should call Consumer Protection at 1-800-422-7128 or click here.. |
| A few words: If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If you have won a prize, there should be NO additional cost. Do Not give these people your bank account routing number or account number. If you are receiving offers through your email for things you didn't sign up (opt-in) to receive information on, hit the Delete button! You have been spammed! Under no circumstance should you "Reply to Remove" your name from the email list. Spammers often send out their mailings by random. When you "Reply to Remove" this tells them they have hit upon a valid email address. Instead of taking you off the list (which is like the 'junk mail' lists that are sold to advertisers) it is annotated as valid and sold to all sorts of advertisers. This is an on going problem with email. |