Yvonne Wilson, a sweet 70-year-old grandmother, knows what it's like to gamble.
The Toronto widow, who beat lung cancer, is now gambling on an trial drug to save her from advanced ovarian cancer.
And perhaps it's one of the reasons why she contacted me. It's time to come clean on how she was duped by a lottery scheme, which scammed her of hard-earned money -- and to warn others not to fall for it.
It started about five years ago when Yvonne received a letter in the mail inviting her to join a sweepstakes with a prize pot of $1 million.
"What I couldn't do with $1 million," said Yvonne, who lives on CPP, Old Age Security, plus a small pension from her deceased husband. She also rents out an apartment in her Parkdale home, to help with the bills.
But more than anything, she wanted to pay for a university education for her three grandchildren. So she entered the sweepstakes.
Lo and behold, a few months later she received a letter that she had won. Ecstatic, she read what she believed to be an authentic lottery letter, which asked her to send in $25 to collect her prize.
CASH MAILED OFF
Not trusting giving out personal financial information, via cheques or credit cards, she sent cash.
Then other letters arrived -- from the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the world. Some invited her to play a new lottery, others said she'd won and to send money to collect her prize.
Never catching on, Yvonne kept sending cash, from $20 to $50, and sat patiently waiting for her prize to come. When it didn't, she fired off letters of complaints. There was a never a phone number she could call.
Finally, seven months ago, she said "enough."
"They weren't getting another penny from me," said Yvonne, who's kept a box full of the letters and estimates -- she responded up to a hundred times.
She's not alone. A close friend recently fessed up that she'd been taken by similar lottery scams on the Internet.
What really riled Yvonne is even though she hasn't entered any lotteries in seven months -- this past week, she got two more letters, one saying she won $1.9 million and another $300 million, and both asking for money to collect the prize.
One read: "The amount that is on record in the National Price Reporting Centre offices is totally accurate and has been carefully assessed ... please sign and be sure to included the reporting office fee of just $22 Cdn."
'DID I GET A LAUGH'
Yvonne wishes she never got hooked: "I should have gone to Vegas with the money. I'd have more fun."
But even though she's lost out, she can still joke.
"You know what's funny," she says. "I just opened up a Chinese fortune cookie, and it said: 'You should be able to make money and hold onto it.' Boy, did I get a laugh."
For years, I've been preaching never to pay upfront money -- not for a loan, a repair or certainly to win a prize. On its website, Canada's anti-fraud call centre Phone Busterscalls this fraud the "prize pitch" or "sweepstakes scam."
The website (phonebusters.com), run by the RCMP, OPP and Ottawa's competition bureau, lists a number of scams to be wary of. And it shows just how sophisticated the thugs are getting.
The latest scam is called "vishing" -- which is a variant of "phishing," whereby scam artists send e-mails to victims pretending to be a bank of major online merchant and ask to verify account information. Once they get it, they clean you out.
Vishing uses voice over internet protocol (VoIP)to fleece victims. Here's how they do it. You get a call saying your credit card has been breached and to call a phone number immediately.
The thieves identify themselves as a bank, credit company or even online merchants, like PayPal, Amazon or eBay.
When you call, a message says: "This is account verification, please enter your 16-digit account number."
If you do it -- you're the latest victim.
"There's definitely vulnerability, because this is a completely new approach," warns Daniel Hong, a senior voice analyst for Datamonitor.
Another scam to watch out for pyramid scams, in which products or investments are being flogged, but the sole reason is to bring in more victims with their money.
The Muffin Club, Women Helping Women, or whatever they're calling the latest scam, is among these. So, too, are offshore tax havens investing in diamonds and other precious metals. The pyramid is a house of cards that will collapse, and you lose your money.
---
As for investing for her grandchildren's education, here's some advice for Yvonne: Take the $25 to $50 she was spending to win lotteries and use the money to regularly invest in a registered education savings plan (RESP). Not only is the taxman not able to get his grubby hands on the gains made on investments held in these babies but Ottawa throws in money, too.
For example, a $2,000 investment can yield $400 in education savings grant money. Over the lifetime of the RESP, you can get up to $7,200 in free money from the taxman.
And there's no gambling involved.
---
WHAT TO WATCH OUT FOR
We live in a world of scam artists.
And these scum are ripping off consumers of trillions of dollars worldwide, with the Internet making it easy to feast on new prey. Here's what to watch out for:
- 900 scams, which cost you money to respond to an offer by dialling a 1-900 phone number.
- Advanced fee scams, where you pay money upfront.
- Nigerian scam, whereby liars try to lure you in with offers of sharing windfalls from offshore business ventures.
- False charities.
- Pyramid schemes, in which the aim is to recruit new members and their money.
- Identity theft, mortgage fraud.
- Office supply scam, where bogus bills are sent to companies.
- Phishing and vishing, which steal credit card info.
- Bogus travel offers.
- Inheritance scams.
