Complaint Review: Loteria Primitiva El Mundo Spanish Loteria Primitiva

On March 2, 2005 I received a letter informing me I had won $615.810USD! from an EL-MUNDO PRIMITIVA INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY PROMOTIONS PROGRAM. It congratulated me as one of 31 lucky international winners to share $16,621,340USD in cash prize money. My letter included a Batch No: 0007500/13, and reference: EGS/2551256003/01. In my clouded excitement it all looked very official, and the included Security Co. form to fill out for wire transfer info made it even more real.

Naturally I was ecstatic, and immediately started thinking about how I would spend the money... Fortunately, before I made any international calls or sent them my bank info, I 'googled' them and found out what you just have....It's a scam! I knew it...it's hard enough to win the lotteries you enter!

When I saw all the other people who had received the same letters, even some with the same ref./batch numbers I was pissed...I was still thinking about MY money! Maybe my letter had come from a valid lottery?, and everyone else was being scammed? I had to read all the rip-off reports before I allowed myself to believe it.

Looking at the letter again, I realized it was printed on plain paper with a cheap inkjet (even had an ink blotch on the bottom) AND my name wasn't even on it.

These scams used to be only emailed, but people caught on pretty quick...so it appears they've moved to using old fashion mail. (obviously costs more, but probably gets more people...especially those who don't have Internet) BEWARE, I'm sure once these scammers run out of people to sending thousands of dollars to Western Union in some foreign country, they might buy better paper and printers, and maybe even use return addresses on the envelopes...who knows?

Good thing I didn't quit my job!

Tom
Toronto, Ontario
Canada