A ROSEWOOD resident has advised the Moreton Border News of the latest scam – this one arrived in the mail.
The letter comes from overseas, is contained in a plain envelope and contains an attractive tourist brochure and two Scratch & Win tickets.
The letter he received was postmarked Selangor, Malaysia.
Someone there has paid about $1.10 for postage to send the letter.
“It’s another scam,” he said. “It may be a very fancy and sophisticated one but it is still a scam.
“The tourist brochure is printed on glossy paper and looks to be the real deal. So do the scratchie tickets.”
To supposedly ‘win big’ all you have to do, according to the letter, is scratch the tickets to reveal your prize … your ‘big prize’.
Our Rosewood informer, scratched one ticket. But all that was revealed were the words, ‘thank you’.
“I scratched the second ticket to find I had supposedly won second prize valued at USD $185,000. That’s about $295,869
in Australian dollars at the current exchange rate.”
But he warned that ‘winning big’ was not cause to get excited.
“I know for sure I’ll never see the money!”
Why?
“There’s too many red flags – the first is that you are asked to connect with a What’s App through a QR code,” he explained.
“If I connected with a QR code it most likely would give the scammers access to my phone and through my phone, gain access to personal information and banking information.”
Our informant said the scam was not new.
“It’s been operating for some years and often promotes different hotels, different locations and different countries.
“I’ve been advised that it always ends up the same.
“You call them to collect your prize only to be told you have to send ‘X’ amount of money to them so they can release the prize to you.
“With some of these scams, the winners have been told they need to pay $7,000 in government tax before the money can be released.”
If you receive one of these letters, his recommendation is to bin it straight away.
