Township of Randolph News
Lottery Scam Advisory
Posted: May 13, 2008
On May 8, 2008, the Randolph Township Police Department received a report from a police department in New York that an elderly person had mailed a sum of money to an address in Randolph Township to receive lottery winnings.
Members of the Randolph Township Detective Bureau investigated the report and determined that the persons in Randolph to whom the money was mailed were also the victims of the lottery scam. Some of the money was recovered and was to be returned to the victims.
It was determined that a number of elderly people throughout the nation received similar unsolicited telephone calls from a person(s) identifying themselves as a representative from a mail order lottery clearinghouse. The representative told the victims they had won a $1,000,000 lottery they had entered. Before they could claim their winnings, however, the victims were first required to send a percentage of money to the representative to cover taxes. On some occasions, the victims were instructed to mail the money to other lottery winners to help the other winners pay their taxes. The victims, all of whom were contacted on a weekly basis and instructed to send more money to pay the taxes, have never received any lottery winnings.
According to Detective John Fichter of the Randolph PD, this type of lottery scam—where the victims are instructed to wire-transfer the money to an out of country location—is popular and preys on elderly people because they are very trusting. Unfortunately, once the money is wire-transferred, it cannot be retrieved.
Det. Fichter advises that if you receive an unsolicited telephone call with the caller indicating that you have won something or asking for personal information, it is most likely a scam. The rule of thumb, he says, is to obtain the name of the caller, organization name, address and contact number and report it to the police.
No one should ever feel obligated or intimidated by a caller and you have the right to request contact information from the caller. If the organization is legitimate and registered with the Division of Consumer Affairs, then the caller should have no problem providing the requested information.