Complaint Review: NIC Financial Management Group Metropolitan Lottery Commission

My husband received a letter in the mail from the Metropolitan Lottery Commission saying that it was a certificate of award.
It was on good quality bonded paper.

It said: This is to certify that so and so has emerged as one of 24 winners of the British International Lottery Program of the Metropolitan Lotto held in London, England.

It goes on to say how participants were selected through a computer ballot system from over a million names drawn from Asia, Europe, North America, and America. It gave ticket numbers.

The amount supposedly won was $98,000 and there was a check enclosed for $1,992.45 to enable you to finance the international clearance fees so you could receive your winnings.

There were several red flags to me that this was too good to be true! First of all, sending a check for that amount through regular mail, not certified or anything.

There were several spelling errors in the letter itself, a reputable company would never make that many errors. The issuer of the check was Metrolina Association for the Blind, Inc.

This made no sense since it was out of North Carolina. And also, the letter asked that you keep the award from public notice until the claim was processed and money remitted to your account.

This was supposedly a security protocol to avoid double claiming or unwarranted taking advantage of the program by the paricipants and the public.

I decided to check out this lottery online and found this website. Apparently, other people have received this letter also and have actually followed through with depositing the check.

Now, they owe money to the bank for depositing a fraudulent check. The check does look very official; watermarks and all, but what bothered me was the address of where it was from..

And our address street name was not capitalized, as well as our city name. Also, the amount of the check was written out FIRST and the line under that was the "To the order of". Normally, it is the other way around.

I am glad that I did check this out before doing anything. Thank you to your site for the helpful information!

I hope to be able to contact the authorities in Canada and report this scam.

Dianne
Newfane, New York
U.S.A.