Hamilton Moore & Associates Charles Hamilton Sr. - Controller Hamilton who??? Markham, Ontario

I received a letter from Mr Charles Hamilton Sr. on 26.10.09 professing to have been trying desperately to contact me as ‘I was eligible to receive a cheque for £550,000.00.’  Mr Hamilton couldn’t have been trying very hard as he had my address down to a T, but this was the first I’d heard of him. 

Apparently if I sent him a cheque for £14.95 to cover all allocation and processing costs, he would send me a cheque for £550k.  And into the bargain a pair of pearl earrings.

Now if I was Mr Hamilton and I was sending him a large sum of money, you think he would at least want a phone number or an email address so that he could thank me.  No such luck, the remainder of the letter contains no such details.

Flip over the page and according to the Official Rules, ‘No Purchase Necessary to enter or win. Purchasing does not improve your chances of winning.  You have not yet won.’  Purchase what exactly???  As previously stated the £14.95 is for allocation and processing costs, this surely cannot therefore refer to the earrings?  Nevertheless assuming that it does refer to the earrings then surely I do not have to pay this £14.95 as ‘NO PURCHASE NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN’?

Oh and ‘You have not yet won’?  Make up your mind Mr Hamilton am I eligible to receive the cheque or have I not yet won?

Moreover, if I do want to know who has won I can write to them after 15^th February 2011! No address supplied for such purposes of course.  I doubt very much if I will even be thinking about Mr Hamilton Sr. in 16 months time, let alone writing to him.

And one other point, the letter states that I am eligible for £550,000.00 when actually the prize is $1000,000.00. Now I’m no expert but $1000,000.00 does not convert to £550,000.00.  Can you really advertise a prize as a certain amount when it won’t be that amount?

Now if I wanted to re-affirm my address to Mr Hamilton Sr. I would turn the tables and send him the whole lot back, (minus the stamp naturally) requesting my cheque and earrings and upon receipt of said I would reimburse him the £14.95 plus postage. (Allowing time for the cashing of such a cheque of course).  However not wanting to re-affirm my address to such an organisation I won’t be doing as such.  Those of you who are thinking of sending this letter and your collected junk mail will be confirming to Mr Hamilton Sr. your address details.  A bit like the time you hit the ‘unsubscribe here’ tab on the junk email that you received and immediately flooded your inbox with 400 more junk emails!

This is clearly a scam.  Sadly I work with and know of people who would be taken in by this scam.  It’s therefore possibly a better idea to put the whole lot in a plain envelope and address it to the police station local to Mr Hamilton Sr. with a brief cover note asking them to investigate.  This surely has to be a better waste of the ‘Overseas Postage’ stamp required than waiting for your pearl earrings!