According to my email, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky this month.
In less than two weeks, I’ve won 16 lotteries. Based on today’s exchange rates, if I claim all the money, I’ll be richer by more than $20 million. Most of the winnings have been in British pounds (gee, they have a lot of lotteries in Britain), though I also won the Spanish National Lottery, worth 915,000 Euros, an unspecified amount from the South African Reserve bank, and up to 50,000 ZARs a day on a free UN ATM card. I haven’t quite figured out what a ZAR is, but I’m sure it’s worth having.
All this good fortune has come out of the blue. I didn’t buy a single ticket. I’d never even heard of most of these contests before I got emails notifying me I’d won. I’m sure they’re all legit, though, because they’re all sponsored by responsible international firms or organizations.
My first lucky break was in the Spanish lottery. I got a personal email notice from Mario Antonio, the director. (Curiously, on the facsimile ticket he included, his name was given as Antonio Gomez. I’m sure there’s a logical explanation to the discrepancy.)
Unfortunately the email was in Spanish, but I managed to translate it with an online service.
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McParland: How I made $20 million in two weeks without leaving my desk,
How fortunate for you, and I get excited when I win a free ticket on 649. It is too bad that too many suckers fall for this scam. Same as they fall for the g/parent scam, don’t tell mom or dad, but I am in jail and need x dollars for bail.
Had a friend that fell for it, this “grandkid” sounded just like hers and he knew lots of private info. He played on a sports team that travelled all over.
And if you check you will find that the teams fb page has bios of all their players, and usually at one time or another they have been interviewed on tv.
Police told her that most of the victims have g/kids on international teams, or are playing on some team in the USA or other countries. And they travel a lot so getting a call from NYC crying for bail money is not uncommom. Easy to get personal info from fb, and to have someone imitate the voice. And they never ask for more money than one can withdraw and send without raising a flag. They will call as many as 25 times in a week. She recorded all the numbers from call display.
The lawyer, the bondsman, (who is willing to be paid off) and others.
Funny thing, her g/son called and she said, oh so happy you are out of jail and he said what are you talking about. He called his parents and said, did grandma have a stroke or something, she is talking weird. And western union had told her it was a scam when she went to send a second pyment and she said, are you calling me a liar.
They refused to send it, and neither would her bank. Her family took her to the police and they eventually traced the money to some p.o box in some weird country.