Bibby Financial Services/ Shoppers Lotto CASHIER'S CHECK SCAM Realistic cashiers check is sent along with letter about Consumer Sweepstakes Lottery Niagara Falls Ontario

I checked my mail today and found I had received a letter from Bibby Financial Services. I had never heard of this company before, so I looked it up on the internet. The website, bibbyfinancialservices.com looked clean enough after inspection, so I opened the letter. Inside was a cashier's check for $3800.00. The letter read the following, with my information removed:

Dear (name removed),

FINAL NOTIFICATION
Sponsored by Shopper's Lotto, Reader's Digest, Publisher's Clearing, Wal-Mart, Western Union etc:

This is to inform you of the official early-bird release of the 2008 CONSUMERS SWEEPSTAKES LOTTERY held on January 7th, 2008 in the 2nd category. A ticket with serial numbers 00311954 attached to your name drew the lucky winning numbers 9, 14, 17, 26, 33, 35.

We have made many unsuccessful attempts to contact you regarding this winning. You are entitled to the sum of $38,000.00 US dollars. This is from total prize money of $380,000.00 US dollars that was shared and presented among 10 declared winners. Please note that all participants were selected through a random computer ballot system drawn from over 500,000 names.

Your claim number is (removed) and in accordance with our disbursement policy your prize award money has been forwarded to our clearing / disbursement institution to release your funds to you either by certified check or money order or wire transfer to your designated local bank account which you will provide. To expedite the processing, enclosed is a check of $3,800 US dollars which has been deducted from your winning.

You will be using some money on this first check to pay for the applicable Insurance process fee on your winning ($38,000.00)
The enclosed check must be deposited into your bank account and please contact your claim agent to further finalize your claim. We ask that you keep your claim number confidentially secured until your claim has been properly processed and funds remitted to you as part of our security protocol to avoid any double claims. Please contact your claim agent Paul Odom or Angela Lawrence at 1-905-598-3529 for further clarification and instructions on claiming your winning immediately.

NOTE: Please note that all prize money must be claimed and finalized before march28, 2008; any unclaimed funds shall then be forfeited.

Congratulations
Yours Truly
Roy Lord
Claim Director

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At first I thought it wasn't a scam because I do bank with Mellon bank. They house my account information for a pay card I use for my direct deposit. AGAIN, MELLON BANK IS A REAL BANK. But once I started looking further, I found less and less information, and ShoppersLotto.com even made me feel this is a complete scam right off the bat due to the way the page is set up. I tried to call the number on the letter, but it says there is no more room to leave a message. When I looked them up on ripoffreport.com, I saw more and more people had received this letter. PLEASE DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SCAM. DO NOT CASH THE CHECK.

Mandi
Modesto, California
U.S.A.