Canadian Lottery Or Any Similar Variation Asking You To Wire Money To Canada Or Another Foreign Country Canadian Lottery Scandal RIPOFF Toronto, Ontario Canada

Rachel,

You are so right!

My mother was targeted by these scammers a few years back and their nerve is unbelievable. One convinced my mother to withdraw several thousand dollars from the bank. Same story: "You won the Canadian Lottery and have to pay the taxes in advance." The bank manager was suspicious so she called the phone number they had given my mother. It was in Canada. The call was answered by a machine, so the bank manager left her number. A few moments later the scammer called her back and tried to convince this well-experienced bank manager that he was an official of the Canadian government and that they were going to send a "Customs Agent" to my mother's home in Ohio to pick up the money in a few days. It turns out that I was already going to be at my mother's home the day they were scheduled to pick up the money. I wish I could tell you about meeting one of these jerks face-to-face but it never happened. Probably because I left a message on their answering machine asking the "Customs Official" to wear his badge on his jacket so I would have something to aim at. (And yes, I would have gunned the b*****d down. I really regret warning them of my plans.)

There must be a mailing list that circulates among the scammers because my mother was targeted over and over after falling for one of their scams. One outfit was sending my mother 20 pieces of mail each day, all of it claiming that she had won a contest and need to pay a processing fee to get her prize. I never get any mail like that.

By the way, I do not mean to imply that Canadians condone these scams. Scam artists usually target people outside their home state as most local police lack the resources to fight interstate crime. Operating from a foreign country just adds one more layer of complexity for law enforcement. Similar scams operate from Italy, India, Russia, and everywhere else.