Complaint Review: Minto Marketing Group

Sweepstakes Claim Notification 

FINAL NOTICE

We have made several unsuccessful attempts to contact you regarding your Consumer Rewards Program winning. 

In accordance with the Consumer Rewards Program Comission Policy, your prize award moey has been forwarded to our clearing/disbursement institution to release your funds to you.

Your lump sum payment is $9.700.00 (NINE THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRE DOLLARS) CONGRATULATIONS!

Kindly contact Claims Agent Gloria Bridges at 1-905-598-5174 as soon as you receive this notice for further instructions on how to claim your grand winning.

We have enclosed a check in the letter.  Per your state regulations, you will be required to pay a tax and processing fee before your lump sum can be sent to you.  Payment will be made directly to your tax agent.  You will also need to fax you payment receipt to yhr fax number above.

Yours Sincerley,

Brain Daniels

Promotion Manager

**My enclosed check was in the amount of $998.73. It looked like an official check (with watermarks and US Patent numbers)  I do alot of online sweepstakes so I was unsure about this one, I enter a ton of sweepstakes and didnt know if this one was real or not.  I didnt want to take it to my bank because I wasnt comfortable with putting a possibly fraudulent check into my personal bank account.  I took to an ACE Cash Express and was told that it was fraudulent and instructed to take it to the police department immediatley.  The agent at ACE told me to look for the following red flags with checks like these....

#1: The first line of the letter "We have made unsuccessful attempts to contact you"...If you entered and won a legitimate sweepstakes, they would contact you by phone, leave you a message, send you an e mail....something.  You would know in one way or another that you won.

#2: The mention of "in accordance with your state regulations, you will be required to pay a tax and processing fee"...If you really won something, the taxes are taken out ahead of time and you dont receive a check to send to another person (i.e., tax agent)

#3: There is no address or phone number on the check.  Legitimate sweepstakes checks have the company name, address and phone number on them.

#4: There is no return address on the envelope that contained the check and letter.

#5: There are typos in the letter.  Legitimate companies take the time to check the letters they send to make sure the spelling, grammer, punctuation is correct. (the last sentence of the letter "You will also need to fax you tax payment receipt to the fax number above." (yours should have been used in this sentence instead of you)

I wish this was a real check as much as the next person....we all could use an extra 10 grand, right?  But, I wanted to share my experience so that someone doesnt lose money or worse....