Britons are being warned of a lottery scam that's bilked some victims out of as much as $150,000. According to the government awareness campaign the finger of blame is pointing across the pond -- squarely at Canada.
Introducing the campaign on Wednesday, the executive director of the Office of Fair Trading (OTF) in Britain said the operation is sophisticated and costly.
"This is a professionally organized operation and the people involved are very persuasive," Penny Boys said, explaining that thousands of Britons have received calls from Canada telling them a Canadian national lottery jackpot has their name on it.
To collect the winnings, all they have to do is pay some tax and a processing fee.
But in the end, there's no prize money.
Tom Steen of Canada's Competition Bureau has some advice for those who get such calls.
"When somebody calls them about a lottery pitch they have to be very suspicious," Steen told CTV Newsnet. "You never receive money out of the blue. Nobody is going to give you money for nothing."
"By alerting consumers to such scams we hope people will recognize the tactics they use and will think again about sending their money away," Boys said.
The government warns that elderly Britons are the most common targets of the scam, which begins with a phone call inviting people to enter their names in a Canadian lottery.
When the target says yes, their name is added to a so-called "sucker list" from which winners invariably get a second call a few days later.
More than 80 per cent of victims are over 65 years of age, the OTF said, many of whom never report the crime out of embarrassment or fear they'll lose control of their finances.
Although lottery fraud from Canada is not a new phenomenon in the U.K., Boys says complaints to the OTF have increased -- with more than 300 since August alone.
According to the British government, at least 15 call centres in Canada are solely targeting British residents. And they're profiting from the crime, bilking unsuspecting targets out of more than $6 million in just the first half of 2003.
Canadian police have been working to close down call centres and intercept maildrops, so far arresting more than 50 people involved in the deception.
Britons concerned about the scam can call contact the OTF hotline. Anyone in Canada with information about the operation is asked to contact the Canadian telemarketing fraud investigators, www.phonebusters.com.
Source: CTV.ca News Staff
