Update - Quebec Based Lottery Method Scam

Rainbow Investigations has a bit more information on another scam coming out of Quebec, and being advertised in the Sun media chain.

This past weekend, newspapers in Canada had full page ads of a method to be more successful at predicting winning lottery numbers. The scam asks consumers to send in aproximately $50 along with their date of birth, and the fraud artists then provide a so-called personalized selection of numbers that are reputed to be more successful at lotteries. Also, the propreitors select and provide days they say are more likely to be successful for someone born on this date.

This scam is complete nonsense in that there is no evidence any set of numbers is more likely to come up in a lottery. Furthermore, there is no evidence that date of birth affects likelihood of winning at lotteries.

More importantly, Rainbow Investigations strongly recommends vulnerable consumers DO NOT SEND IN THEIR PROPER NAME WITH DATE OF BIRTH. This kind of personal information is exactly what fraud artists can use to perpetuate further frauds such as identity theft, and other financial theft.

This promotion gives an address of 36 Toronto Street, Toronto, and while the proprietors' customer service line insists there is a warehouse and a call center there, in actual fact it is an Executive Center shared office complex. The propreitors simply use this as a mail drop, and the mail order materials are then sent to Quebec.

The call center is located in the Montreal area, and the operation comes from a Montreal suburb located northeast from the actual city.

The operation also has a U.S. call center based in a major city in the Pacific Northwest.

It remains unfortunate that this level of consumer scams are still out there, and we don't have people in government, like us (humble us!), who get to the bottom of these things quickly!

If anybody in a position of knowledge has more info, email us confidentially. You will be helping vulnerable consumers.

Ron Reinhold.

Date of Story: Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Story Posted By: Ron Reinhold
Source: Ron Reinhold

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