Complaint Review: Shoppers Choice Award

I received a check on 10/23/08 in the amount of $3,875.00. The letter with the check said they have had no success reaching me by phone and that this check is to cover the taxes on the $55,000 I have won. The check looks real. My career is in finance so I noticed other things right away that didn't look right even though the check looked very real. The envelope was just plain white with no writing whatsoever. They lable was put on upside down. Seems someone sending a real check for that amount would want some type of return address or delivery confirmation and probably would not be as of so sloppy to put the lable on upside down. The letter used companies names that are very familiar to people..Wal-Mart, PayPal, UPS, FedEx, Money Gram.

Another thing that struck me odd was that the letter was from Shoppers Choice Awards, Inc., but the check was from American Alloy Steel, Inc. out of Houston, TX and the address was a P.O. box. Wording in the letter was off also:"We strongly advise you to contact Ms. Kelly before you can deposit this check in the bank". Are they strongly advising or do you have to do it before you can deposit it? Little play on words here. The letter had little more information that the envelope. So there were many clues that it was fake, but to be 100% sure I figured I would look the company up on the internet and of course immediately saw people stating that they had received the same thing. This is going to fool and rob a lot of people I fear due to the authentic look of the check. I want to do my part to stop whomever is behind this scam. Isn't life hard enough these days without crooks like this?

Kathy
Savage, Minnesota
U.S.A.