N.P.R.C./ National Prize Reporting Center/ Sweepstakes Research & Reporting Center/ DRD Data Release Division They wanted a $19.99 sent to them to verify my identity to claim a National Sweepstakes Prize of $1,250,000. Jericho New York

I received 2 letters telling me I won a National Sweepstakes, one for $1,250,000 and $1,400,000, both from New York, same official looking envelope, telling me to send them $19.99 to verify my identity. One was from the National Prize Reporting Center, Jericho, NY and one from Data Release Division, Levittown, NY. You can tell these 2 companies are the same. I got these within 2 days of each other. Wouldn't THAT have been my lucky week? Yeah right. These people should not be allowed to get away with this.

Obviously, someone is falling for this stuff or they wouldn't have the resources to make it so official looking, plus time and materials and postage, and from what I've heard, also long drawn-out phone calls for which they collect a fee. I get this kind of thing almost every day in my Spam e-mail, but from other countries. I just delete them. I realize that maybe the ones not in the U.S may be hard to get to, but this one is in the US, New York. I think something should be done about this and not just brushed aside as a harmless scam. Promising people a sweepstakes prize, getting their hopes up and then stealing from them? And we don't do anything about it. Shame on us.

Lorraine
Bakersfield, California
U.S.A.