I received a letter dated 10 June from Intl Lotto Commission -address: Calle Capitan Haya Nr. 53,28020 Madrid-Spain ; tel: 0034 6333 96099 - saying that from their Euro Spanish International Lottery Program and a sequence of lottery numbers assigned to me therein I had won a lump sum payment of 1,000, 000 Euros from a grand total dispersed of 17,000, 000. To begin my lottery claims I was then instructed to contact my agent, Don David Perez, The Foreign Service Manager, Grupo Liberty Seguros SA. On tel no. 0034 6729 31976, which, alas to say, I did.
As a first result I was told of the need to pay an amalgam of registration, agent and expediting fees in order to best effect that lump-sum transfer. So, to do this, Mr Perez advised that I send the sum of these 'fees'- £1217 - by Moneygram to his British agent, Carl Preston, which I did on 21 June via Moneygram Transaction Number 28689227.
That done and thinking that I'd paid to clear away the inevitable bureaucracy that can crop up in such an international fund tranfer, Mr. Perez soon came back on to me to tell that the £1217 had been received, and that a Mr Antonio Martinez (Tel No. 0034 633 180757) at La Caixa bank had been on the point of releasing 'my' lump sum when he'd been contacted by the Spanish Internal Revenue Tax Office, who'd then interdicted the release, on the grounds that lump-sum tranfers out of Spain over a set figure -can't recall the specific figure, but, be assured, 'my' million was over it. For such as were over the set figure, the transfer could still be effected, but on payment of a 1% deduction from the lump-sum total, and that deduction-charge had to be paid before the release of the lump-sum— in effect, thereby one SECURED the lump-sum release. 1% of a million was 10,000 Euros, or, in GB Pounds Sterling at the then rate of exchange, £8813.84.
Mr Perez advised that that 1% sum should be paid by telegraphic transfer to Bozell Enterprise Ltd as Beneficiary, their Beneficiary Bank being HSBCSGSG, their Beneficiary Account being 260759683178, and that the reason for payment should be 'Payment for goods'. I made the telegraphic transfer as stipulated on 22 June from a Halifax branch in Edinburgh via RCP Transaction ID 2134526, the sum transferred being £8813.84 converted into Singapore 16,912.00 currency (don't know if it's dollars or what).
I have paper copy of the 2 money-transfer docs cited above that resulted in my losing £10,031, for it was a loss, there being no million forthcoming.
How could I have been so gulled? From that initial letter and the rigorous detail—which at face value seemed verifiable detail—therein, and on through several phone conversations with Mr Perez and Mr Martinez where each always came over as genuine, friendly, at ease, indeed empathetic at MY good fortune, with much gentle -sometimes joking - good will to effect my good fortune into good fact. Thereby I had the constant sense that these people and so this story was genuine, and so I went with it, and made a catastrophic dent in my retirement finances.
In my case it seems true that there's no fool like an old fool. My pride, my trust and of course my finances are down, but I know, not as self-consolation but simple fact, that my soul is far greater than that of any of the people who perpetrated this mean scam on me.
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