Washington County Sheriff Otto Hanak reports that yet another ongoing scam that involves “lottery winnings” has surfaced in our county. Members of the Washington County Sheriff's Office learned that numerous elderly residents have voiced their concerns over a recent mail out from “Liberty Financial Services” (non-existent) suggesting they were the “2nd prize winner in the second category of the USA Mega draw held on January 6, 2014.” The letter asks the receiver to call a “claim agent” who will then solicit their personal and financial information to commit identity theft, theft and/or fraud. The letter, shown below, indicates this receiver had won $355,000.00 and included with the letter, was a check in the amount of $4,650.00. Hanak states that this is a scam and the letter and fake check should be destroyed. According to Sheriff Hanak, the recent mail out appear to had originated in Canada. Sheriff Hanak also wants to remind our residents that it is practically impossible to catch these type criminals so please do all you can to avoid being one of their victims by ignoring things such as this.
Example of the scam letter.
Example of the scam check.
This report courtesy of the Washington County Sheriff's Office.
If someone’s actually able to cash the faux check, when it comes back ISF, the bank hits the customer for the money.
Having worked for a catalog company that used to do sweepstakes every month, we’d send out examples of what a winning check would *look* like. However, they had ALL over them verbiage stating it wasn’t a for-real check. One customer actually did manage to get their local bank to cash one, and use the money for collateral on a boat and a new car.
My company was sued for fraud, but ultimately won because the language throughout the material said “non-negotiable”.
So what happens if someone just cashes the check and ignores the letter? Surely there is a downside to this also.