I received a letter from Veridian Group Inc. A division of Citi Financial Services saying I'm one of the winners in the 2nd category of Sweepstake and Lottery Draw held on Dec. 1st. They gave me a serial number and a claim number. Enclosed was a check for $4,500 which is to be deposited into my acct then pay non resident govnt service tax of $2,980 with it. Also payment method for the tax is money gram. I am advised to call the assigned claims agent, Brian Smith at (905) 995-6776 ext. 201 Mon to Fri for further instructions on how to claim the winnings... Oh, and also it says "Please do not act on this notice until you speak to your agent."
So I call today (Monday) just to see if its real or fake and its an international number. I go out and buy an International calling card and call... To find out, I'm calling Canada. Spoke to a girl name Nicole cause Brian's not in office and told her I'd call back tomorrow. She insisted desperately that she could help me even though Brian's not there. She asked for my Claim number and told me I won the sweepstake. She gave me a story that I was entered through retail stores such as walmart, kmart, etc, and alot of other retail stores throughout the country. Those retail stores send their consumer lists to Veridian and Veridian draws once a year to see who wins the sweepstakes. I asked why they'd give money away and she said its commercial companies that makes millions each year and have to give donations due to tax break. You know what that means right? In other words, they make so much money that they have to give money away so they don't have to pay so much taxes at the end of the year. It sound believeable when she told me. Then she said to deposit the check tomorrow and don't do anything till the check clears. On Thursday call them back and update them with my file information. Once the check clears then call them and they'll send me to a tax agent around my area and thats who I go pay the non residen tax with. I was telling her that I'm not sure cause this seems to good to be true. She was telling me it's true and who would send you a check for $4,500... She was trying so hard to convince me it was true. She even said she knows I may be in shock cause I won $450,000 and thats like half a million and if it was her she'd be shock and wouldn't know what to say either. She also told me the reason they send check is so that when we deposit with our bank it will notify that it is really the person on the check that is depositing instead of some stranger who picked it up and cashed it. She said even some stranger can find this mail and call to claim its them and they'd update the file with their information so thats why they have us deposit the check first then call to update our file information. What an excuse right.
I called my sister and told her the whole thing. She is very into law, jurisdiction, etc... So she told me that the new scam now is that they're scamming with checks like this and she's heard of some scams similar to this already. I forgot to tell her that I'd be paying the tax agent in money gram... But she did say to me..."if they tell you to pay in money gram then its a scam." So I decided to go on the web to check if its a scam... And so it is. I found the same exact thing like mine on this website and I also found the same thing on a newschannel website in Frankfort, NY. If you want to check it out... Here is the website: http://www.wktv.com/news/consumer/39735952.html
Go check it out... I can't believe it was on the news. I wonder if anyone called these people to cuss them out yet cause I sure as hell would do it. If you guys didn't read the rest of the other usacomplaints.com about this company... There was another person who reported on here that they deposited the $4500 check at the bank and the bank held the check just in case there was something wrong... It appears that there was no funds in that account coming from the $4500 check. To my thinking, the scam is that they find these bank account numbers and can't get cash so in order for them to get cash they pick victims out and send them fake checks that look real... If the victims fall for it, they deposit it... The check clears and they receive money from that bank account which is being scammed. So now the victim has money in their bank account... They take out $2,980.00 and make a money gram to the tax agent and the tax agent gives the money to the scammer cause the tax agent is a scammer along with them. Now noone gets in trouble except the victim cause they deposited the $4,500 check which has some other victim's bank account number on it. The money gram can't really be tracked right? So thats the end of the story. Those scammers live in Canada and the US can't go beyond their jurisdiction to do anything to them. Case closed and we the US victims get in big trouble for them and they get away.
So its a scam!!! Don't deposit the check cause its too good to be true!!!
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