A letter was sent to my mother claiming she was the winner (among 17 others) of some international lottery and that a company called Mapfre Marketing entered her name in. The letter sounded shady, mixing in some random numbers (reference #'s, bar code numbers, international phone numbers), along with some very misspelled words in English, and a few overtly official sounding claims ("Your Fund is now deposited in an offshore bank insured with your name"..."please endeavor to quote your reference and batch numbers in every correspondence with us or your agent.").
There is some cheesy graphics at the top of the letter that looked like somebody printed out these letters with an old dot matrix printer. Besides the letter itself, another form asking for ID and Tax Clearance Information suggested that to get the money, recipients must turn over photocopies.
My mother, no fool, was interested and asked me to call the numbers the letter gives. Sorry, I'd rather save my money on the international call, but I must admit, i was tempted to do it collect. There is a foreign sounding appeal, mistakes and all. The use of names and numbers only adds to this. I can only pray that these punks get what they deserve but until than, I hope this might help someone from losing their money, time, security from this type of ID theft.
Finally, the attempt to keep dissuade people from asking around about this alleged lottery was amusing
"Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we advise you to keep this award from public notice until your claim has been processed and your money remitted to your nominated bank account as this is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking advantage of this program by participants"
Anyone one who claims to give you something for nothing, and than claims due to the moon being blue and the Lakers making the play offs, you should keep quit about your money waiting in an 'offshore bank account, is an idiot who barely figured out enough English to write the letter and the use of Microsoft Paint to put it together—don't be fooled! At least if they said they would "wire your funds to a undisclosed Swiss Account" you could enjoy the nostalgic Hollywood approach.
0 comments