I received a letter with a check enclosed for the amount of $4680.23 stating that I was the winner of a lottery held by Readers Digest. They asked me to contact a person by the name of William Keys, to activate my account before September 30th, 2005. Although the letter said that I could contact them from 8:30 am to 10 pm, Monday through Saturday, I couldn't do so either on Friday evening or Saturday (all day).
When I finally contacted him on Monday morning, this person explained to me about the details of the awarded lottery, but seemed to be really in a hurry to hang up. He basically instructed me to send money through Western Union in the amount of $4300 to a person by the name of Berry Gibson, in Houston, Texas.
When I inquired why I didn't need to put an address, he told me that this was not required when money was sent through Western Union. I could use any of the green forms there and this "Berry Gibson" would take care of paying the processing fees on my behalf, and send me the final check for $91, 319.77. This raised my suspicions as the letter stated that it will also cover applicable taxes, but that this mandatory fee was needed to establish the legitimacy of my claim(?).
Also, the letter did not contain any logo, except for the signature of a so-called Fenton Coleman, Vice President of Loss Prevention. The address was a P.O.Box in Canada (not in the US) and the telephone number of the company was the same one listed for the "Foreign Accounts Manager", also strange. Finally, the person hung up on me in the middle of our talk, when our conversation went a little beyond his expectations (I was asking too much).
I deposited the check in my account as it appeared to be buttressed by the NCUA (it contained a logo), but before doing anything I carried out a quick browse in the Internet to see if I could find this company and/or the names of these "account managers". I found that they had already scammed different people nationwide.
I would like to reach out all those people who might be on the verge of being scammed to warn them about this person or fake company.
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