Complaint Review: Citi Trust Financial

My husband and I received a letter from Citi Trust Financial Inc. The very elementary letter, that looked as if it was printed in someone's bedroom on an ink jet printer, stated that we were "one of the third category winners of a lotter draw held on May, 23rd 2007". The envelope had a pathetic looking label with my husband's name on it, a canadian stamp, and no return address.

The letter continued to say ~ "This group drawing was made for all one-time participants of the national /state/lottery / sweepstakes in the past five years, it was tagged COMPENSATION DRAW". The letter stated that a ticket with a serial number 29745014AL that was attached to my husband's name and his lucky winning numbers were 40-62-44-24.

We were further notified that we'd actually won a lump sum of $250,000, and enclosed was a check for $4700.00 to cover the GST. The check was from:

TYCO ELECTRONICS CORPORATION (C'mon any Tyco went bankrupt long ago)
Payroll Dept 161-51/12924
P.O. Box 3608
Harrisburg, PA 17105-3608

Funny, we've never played the lottery...not even in Canada. Why would we owe $2,700.00 to Lynda Hofman (our tax agent) at 2410 Empire Road Ottawa, Ontario, Cananda K1A 1K6, and why would we have to send it via Moneygram or Western Union? Moreover, we would never dream of sending anyone anything until that check cleared. We've all had "friends" write us bad checks, so we all know how important that 5 day waiting period is...

By now we were both giggling at the minor mystery of this letter. I forgot to mention that we had explicit instructions to call CHRISTY CHOUNG our claim agent, to begin the claim process of our winnings, but for security reasons, we should keep all of this good news confidential "TILL" (yes it actually said till spelled exactly that way) all disbursements are made.

Seriously people how dumb or greedy do these people think we are? I say that very tounge in cheek because I realize that many people would like to believe that some mysterious way, they've actually won and their life is changing before their very eyes. I would love to magically be $250,000 richer. I have parents that are older, I have kids going off to college, I have friends that are struggling for a break. These are just a few of the people that we all need to protect from these predators. We owe it to each other to show social responsibility and report these things as they happen. Kudos to Ripoff Report, and kudos to all that have reported scams and all that will.

Canadians already get a bum wrap when all we want to do is s****.> Please read things carefully, if it seems to good to be true..it is, and never Western Union money to anyone you don't know. Lastly, remember the Lottery tag line is "You Can't Win If You Don't Play".

Alexsandra
Los Angeles, California
U.S.A.