Oshkosh Northwestern - Officials warn of new lottery scam

Oshkosh Northwestern - Officials warn of new lottery scam: "Officials warn of new lottery scam
By Jennifer K. Woldt
of The Northwestern
The letter that told Vicky and Randy Paulson they had won $160,000 in a lottery seemed too good to be true.
Turns out it was.
The letter, and an accompanying check for $1,996, was part of a foreign lottery scam being operated out of the Netherlands.
As part of the scam, the Paulsons were asked to cash the $1,996 check, which is meant to help cover taxes, and then send a payment to the Netherlands to cover the costs associated with sending the lottery winnings to Oshkosh. The original check would have bounced after a few weeks, leaving the person who received the check responsible for bounced check charges and covering the check.
'I had never seen one of these before,' Vicky Paulson said. 'I'm glad I investigated because there's going to be other people who fall for this. This is something a gullible person would really get themselves into a deep hole with.'
Capt. Jay Puestohl of the Oshkosh Police Department said there are a number of reasons why he's concerned about the scams. He said the checks are often computer generated and look very authentic, making it difficult to realize they are fraudulent.
The Oshkosh Police Department receives a few complaints each week about similar scams. He noted while the scam is the same, the origin varies, from Spain to countries in Africa.
But the possibility of winning a large sum of money is difficult for some people to resist.
'Unfortunately, if preys upon people's hopes to become rich,' Puestohl said. 'They purport that the people are winners of a large amount of money and it is hard to discard something like that.' "