Lottery winner impersonation
Scammers pretend to be lottery winners because they can confuse their victims with real news articles about the millionaires they are posing as.
They send a mass email in the hope of snaring the right person at the right time – it takes just a moment of vulnerability to reply.
A recent example reported to WA ScamNet, by a usually scam-savvy pensioner from the UK who has been suffering some ill health and perhaps had his guard down, is this email claiming to be from ‘The Maxwells Fund’.
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Four days later a more personalised follow-up email arrived.
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Thankfully the man came to Consumer Protection and we were able to confirm it as a scam.
Warnings have been issued by Australian-based website Hoax -Slayer and UK-based newspaper Lincolnshire Echo.
It shows that an internet search is always a good place to start before responding to out-of-the-blue offers. Put the word ‘scam’ after the words you are searching e.g. The Maxwells Fund scam.
We’ve seen an email scam like this before when sadly an 85-year-old WA man lost $200,000 to scammers posing as EuroMillions lottery winners Adrian and Gillian Bayford.
The Bayford’s lawyers actually sent a letter of thanks to Consumer Protection for our awareness-raising regarding the frauds being carried out in their name.