I have recently been courted by the Lucky Day International Lottery.
On April 5th, I received an eMail telling me that my Lucky five numbers had come up in the Lucky Day Lotto for $500,000.00 euro dollars.
The original notice was signed by a Ms. A. Hendrix. I first responded to their primary email address: [email protected] and got no reply. I sent two replies and no response was forthcoming. I next emailed their alternate email address [email protected] and received a reply from a Mr. Manfred Taylor who had told me they had tried to respond back with a reply email.
This was not true for I had never received an email response from my first two email responses.
Anyway, in my third email attempt I had indicated that I had tried to resond three different times, with this current email being my third time. I also told them that I had tried to call their international number and got some voice mail machine with a message left by a woman whose language sounded Dutch or Swedish.
I did leave a message in English ascertaining someone would know English if I left a message.
I then recieved a return response to my third eMail, which I must add in, did challenge their sincerety of their offer of $500,000 euro dollars.
I was informed by Mr. Taylor and I quote: "Be informed that we are not playing in this office rather we are serious with the duties that have been assigned to us to do by the lottery organizers" and this man told me how honorable he was. He then instructed me to fill out a form that came with the notice to start the processing of my lottery winnings.
I informed him that I had received no such form. They had also provided no real location from which there offices were nor what part of the world they were operating in.
I next received a "Lucky Day Appraisal Form to be filled out by me. Now normally I would not have gone this far, but I had remembered fooling around with a lottery entry a few months back, but could not remember if it was this Lucky Day business or not.
So I filled out the form giving my name and address and phone number as well as the ticket number, batch and reference number and faxed it back to them. Unfortuately they have my signature on the form.
By this time I was on the phone with a paralegal who is handling a group suit I'm involved with from an investment I made with a company called Pantheon HOldings Inc, in Florida in connection to their EZlink kiosk advertisements.
I was advised and instructed that as long as they don't ask me for any money, that the solicitation seemed harmless enough, but to make sure not to give out my bank account information.
I gave the matter further thought and decided to proceed further.
The next morning, after I had sent back the Appraisal form, I got a new email from Mr. Taylor telling me that they had received my form and attached was another form that needed to be signed. This form was entitled "Payment Scheme Form (P4)". This form requested how I wanted the winnings paid and they wanted me to pay $662.00 euro dollars for a notary public and I quote from his email:
"After verification of your winning notification and documentation, we are required to get Notarization and Stamp duty on your winning to enable the SECURITY and FINANCE BANK carry out the transfer of your winning and also make or leave you as the true beneficiary of the DRAW under the LUCKYDAY INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY BOARD, Den Haag - Netherlands".
Well, there you have it... Their location!
There are no typos in that quote by the way. I typed it exactly the way it is worded on the email I got dated April 20th. I think this guy needs to work on in english. (LOL)
Well, here was my reply dated April 20 at 12:25 PST:
Mr. Manfred Taylor,
I'm in receipt of your email.
Mr. Taylor, please be advised that here in the United States, it is against both Federal and State law to ask for any money when awarding winnings from either a lottery or sweepstakes. I have passed your email to Cyndee Winkler, who is the main paralegal working with the law firm of Frank B. Perry & Associates in Tennesee to look over your lottery offer for advisement.
Also, I explained to you that I was just ripped off for the sum of $20,000 last September from a company in Florida that did not deliver on their promise concerning a kiosk business opportunity I tried to invest into, since I can't work due to a continuing disability I suffer from and I am not about to give up another $1,000 in American dollars simply because you folks can not afford a darn notary public. That does not even make good business sense.
But to see if you are as honorable as you claim to be from your earlier email, I'll tell you what, I'll sign an agreement if you wish, that you may deduct the needed $662.00 euro dollars from the $500,000 winnings upon completion of the claim.
I'm sorry, but I know the attorneys I'm working with will instruct me not to pay a dime, given the amount of scams that exist in the world. I'm working on limited savings as it is and off the equity of in my home these days, plus some rent money I get from my cousin who lives with me.
While I need the $500,000, I should not have to pay someone money who is offering money. Even common sense tells me not to do this and I'm 50 years old! You must think I'm a fool!
If you want to continue this further, that is the best I can do under the circumstances. The ball is now back in your court. Let's see what you decide to do.
Here is the response I got from Mr. Manfred Taylor with Lucky Day:
This is to confirm the receipt of the filled payment scheme and the required id. Be informed that this office has no legal power to deduct any CENTS from your winning sums for stamp duty and the notorization fees. You are obliged to pay this charges before you winning certificate can be legalize and send to the paying authority who will contact you on how to send you the fund on your choosing mode.
Be further inform that, your country police is a different one to this place. Therefore, you are advise to send the legal charge fee to enable this office complete your claim processing.
Await your urgent response.
Regards.
M.S. Taylor
By the way, those were not typos I made when typing from the original document. Like I said before, this fellow really needs to take a few lessons on the King's English! (LOL)
Well, you can imagine what my response was.
I reiterated that I would not pay a dime to receive such winnngs and that if the man was truly honorable, he would find a way to take care of it on his end (I presume this person is a him) and get the winnings to me.
The worst I have at risk is that I've already given my name and addres and signatures, but no banking information. This is one of the reasons I'm writing this to Ripoff, in caes these people try using my name in some form of Identity Theft, I'll have documented the whole thing before it hapens.
But here is the main reason why I'm posting this today. We found a website called www.fraudwatchinternational.com and when we typed "Lucky Day" into their search engine, guess what we found??!!!
Yup, a whole lot of people being ripped off by Lucky Day and given the dates, this looks like a new scam in the works! When I didn't originally find "Lucky Day" in the Ripoff search engine, I thought I'd take the time to post this so others who might be checking on this company and didn't know about Fraud Watch, would have a chance to be spared any grief from this con coming out of the Netherlands, if that is their true location.
I'm presently waiting to see what this guy is going to say next. Should be fun. God knows I'm not sending this clown any money, but whatever I learn, I'll add into the rebuttle section of this post so others might be forwarned of this new scam.
By the way, if this had been real, the exchange rate on the euro for April 19th, was about $1.30 exchange rate on the American dollar. So $500,000 in euro dollars would have been $650,000 USD, in case some of you who read this don't know about the Euro dollar.
Hope I saved someone a whole lot of grief ahead of time.
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