Norfolk senior loses $27,500 in lottery scam
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A Norfolk senior, who believed they won big money in a U.S. lottery, ended up losing $27,500 instead.
The elderly resident received a call on March 16 saying they had won $785,000 from the New York State Lottery. In order to claim the prize, all they had to do was send $27,500 to what turned out to be a fraudulent address.
Norfolk OPP was contacted when family members realized the person had been scammed.
Police have a message for those who receive such calls saying the person has won a large sum of money from a lottery or a new vehicle: “Please hang up the phone. This is a scam.”
“Don’t become a statistic. Fraud is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that will only stop when the scammers stop getting money, banking information or personal information. The best thing to do is to simply hang up the phone,” police said in a media release.
For more information on fraud, call the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 or http://www.antifraudcentre.ca.
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