A Nanaimo woman, who will remain anonymous, has given up hope of recouping money she recently lost in a lottery scam, according to Nanaimo RCMP.
In total, scammers made off with almost $27,000 after tricking her into believing she had won the grand prize in a lottery of $750 million, which included a Mercedes Benz.
The senior received numerous phone calls from a man said who said his name was Dave Morin in March, according to Cst. Gary O’Brien.
The person told her all she had to do to claim her winnings was pay some upfront taxes.
Over the course of next three weeks, the victim was called many times and instructed to purchase either Vanilla pre-paid gift cards or to send cash by mail.
She was told to send the cash to various addresses across B.C. and North America.
In total, she sent almost $16,000 in cash by mail and another $10,600 in Vanilla pre-paid cards, O’Brien said.
When herprize never arrived, she spoke with a family member, who convinced her there was no lotto and she had been scammed. She has since changed her phone number and she no longer uses a landline.
“Sadly, this happens more often that not and in many cases the victim only realizes that they have been scammed when the prize never comes,” O’Brien said.
Police said the lotto scam may come in various forms. You may be contacted my email, through social media, by phone or regular mail. If you do respond, the scammers will make every effort to keep you interested and will respond almost immediately to you.
