I received a letter declaring me a winner of the North American sweepstakes lottery. With that came a check in the amount of $4900.00. The check looked so real, I even asked the teller at the bank if the check was an original document, and she said it looked real to her and it had the watermarks on it as well. The check was sent to expedite the process for me to receive $100,000. The check was supposedly from the Royal Carribean because they were one of the sponsors, so they said.
The letter had special instructions, I was to call Mr. James Mucas before cashing the check. So I did, he told me to cash the check at my bank and then to moneygram $2985.00 to Nina Robertson in Houston Texas because she was one of the people here in the US assigned to process the taxes on the winnings. I was skeptical however, I figured I had nothing to lose since I was not using any money out of my pocket.
After doing so I was to call Mr. Mucas back with the reference number on the moneygram and for further instructions on how I was to receive my winnings e.g. cashier's check, money transfer wire, money order. When I called him, It was then that I realized this was a scam, he told me that I needed to do one more thing before they could send me the money and that was to send $1700.00 for processing the claim in Canada.
The person to send the money to was Lara Hudson in London Ontario, Canada. I didn't and I told Mr. Mucas I wasn't going to send nothing to noone because this was nothing but a scam. He became nervous but irrate at the same time but he continued to try to deceive me by saying that my winnings would be donated to charity and ended by saying that I had 24 hrs. to send that money or else his boss would put a stop payment on that check. A few days later I was notified by my bank that the check was counterfeit and I was out $2985.00.
Martha
Highland, California
U.S.A.