American Marketing & Publishing Group Logan Peterson National Game & Control Board Mike Miller Random phone call I had won a prize Rochester New York

I received a random phone call from a very polite and respectable "Logan Peterson" 888-288-1593.  He said he was with "American Marketing & Publishing Group" ("AMPG") in Rochester NY.  He told me I had won a prize December 14, 2019 and they had tried numerous times to contact me via mail with no response so they were calling me to get this finalized and transfered.  He went on to explain I had won a prize and my claim number was my initials and last 4 digits of my phone number (how convenient & safe, right?)

Evidently, because I used my Visa at Walmart my name was randomly pulled to be the winner of a 2nd place cash prize of $975,000 that Visa and Walmart jointly give away annually as a tax write-off.  I was told to call "Mike Miller" at the "National Game & Control Board" in Virginia. (this board checks & monitors game companies according to him)  The board had paid all the taxes and fees to receive this prize and they would need to talk to me since the time had expired on collecting my prize.  So, (in order to collect more info for this scam because it is obvious it is) I called "Mike Miller" at the "NGCB". 

He explained since the "NGCB" had paid the taxes already I would need to get a surety bond and he directed me to go to "Suretyone.com" out of Brooklyn NY to get it.  They had paid 3% of the winnings in tax & fees already.  However, I was super lucky because of my income & they were only going to make me pay 1% bringing my total owed to $2,975.00 to get my super-duper winnings. I researched all these companies finding very similar named entities but not at the city/state given in phone conversations.  I proceeded to call the corporate offices of Walmart & Visa to varify the scam. 

I also called American Marketing & Publishing (that is located in DeKalb, Ill) and spoke with a great lady who said they had received a couple of other calls about this and verified it was most likely a scam.  They are a very legit marketing/publishing company.  After a few days, Mr. Logan Peterson (who by the way, is hispanic) called to see if I had followed thru on contacting "Mike Miller at "NGCB".  I told him I did and proceeded to ask questions that he did not appreciate (I was still acting naive and interested to gather info). 

I wanted to know why when I did research on these companies I could not find one that matched the information he had given me, similar but not a match.  I wanted to know, if they were truly the Board that oversees checks and balances of gaming companies, why they were not listed on the Better Business Bureau or found via website.  Certainly, they should be.  He became upset and told me to go to "American Marketing & Publishing Group reviews" and being a smart-a*s said, "really its not that hard to do, just google it."  I told him I was on there right now (which I had gone to while on the phone with him, again to gather info) and there was nothing resembling what he was talking about & the closest thing to it had negative responses.  So, I asked him to send me a link I could see the reviews at.  Well, at this point the real "Mr. Peterson" was starting to rear its head and he became more and more beligerent. 

He rambled something about they don't publish a website due to the kind of work they do. We went back and forth a bit with him getting more frustrated.  He did not like my logical and critical questions.  I told him I would see what I could find & call him back. So he told me, "You have till the end of today to let me know.  We are not going to keep playing this game with you! If I don't hear from you today we are closing this account!"  Hmm, OK.  At this point, as much as I would LOVE to continue with this and mess up their world, I don't get paid to research deeper nor do I have the time to deal with trying to "get them at their own game" so I decided I would submit this warning for others.  Stay clear ya all.