Lottery fraudsters have got my mate’s number

“WE’RE celebrating,” shrieked Colin above the sound of popping champagne corks at our local watering hole.

“We’ve just won 700 million El Salvador lira in the South American country’s official lottery. A bloke called President Cortez has written and told us.”

To claim the prize, Colin simply has to give President Cortez his bank details, inform the El Salvador government’s representative in Warley, called Shane, when his house is unattended and where he leaves his car keys.

To comply with the country’s rich history of embezzlement, he must also write down how much he’d pay if a family member is kidnapped, purely as a precaution.

Should his mother-in-law be spirited away by hooded, armed terrorists, Colin has pledged the price of a fish and chips supper. For two, if need be.

But he’d have to be sent a finger first. “It’s a scam,” I told the sozzled merrymakers, stopping the conga chain before it spilt onto the pub car park.

“It’s not,” insisted Colin. “The letter’s even got the El Salvador coat of arms on it. You can clearly see Kevin Keegan’s face in the middle - below the gold leaf toilet roll.

“Ask yourself this,” I cautioned the jubilant rustic, “have you ever entered the El Salvador lottery?”

He had not, but once got three “John The Baptist” heads in a row on a scratchcard bought during a vacation in Vatican City. The prize allowed him immunity in confessionals about overdue library books.

Three “Josephs” and he would’ve been allowed to spit in the street without owning up to a priest. A line of “Marys” and he could stage a military coup.

Colin believes the Vatican scratchcard success may have “bought him in” to the El Salvador lottery.

“Listen,” I said, shaking my jubilant drinking colleague. “It’s a con. Write back and it’ll be the last you see of that £4.60 you’ve got in your bank account.”

“£4.15,” corrected Colin, shuffling uncomfortably. “I bought a finger of Fudge yesterday.”

“And they’ll purchase thousands of pounds worth of goods on your credit cards without your knowledge,” I added sternly.

“My wife’s already done that,” muttered Colin, suddenly crestfallen.

“If an offer is too good to be true,” I advised, “it usually isn’t, or is - I get mixed up. Unless it’s that free bucket of chicken nuggets and root beer with every deep fried suckling pig purchased at that fast-food place up the road.”

“How much is 700 million El Salvador lira, anyway?” I asked.

“Over there, enough to buy a tin mine,” he said.

“And over here?”

“I’m not sure,” admitted Colin, “but the El Salvador economy’s definitely stabilised. Workers still collect their wages in wheelbarrows, but they don’t need two people to push them now.

“Economists are confident that in five years a rucksack will be sufficient.”

“You can’t stand the thought that I’ve won something and you haven’t,” chided Colin. “Like that time I found that stray animal. I wanted to keep it, but, oh no, you had to tell the authorities.”

“It was a llama, Colin,” I pointed out, testily.

“Just look at it logically,” I implored. “You didn’t pick any numbers, you didn’t enter the competition, you’ve never heard of the country, yet you’ve won. Doesn’t that seem a little bit odd?”

“Stranger things have happened,” argued Colin. “My dad won spot-the-ball with a nosebleed.”

“At least speak to the authorities before doing anything rash,” I counselled my pub companion.

Colin had - the El Salvador authorities, or, rather, their Warley representative, Shane.

Colin rang at a bad time, though. Shane was wrestling with a “bit of a rush on Big Macs.”

“He called me a jammy so-and-so,” said he’d been doing the El Salvador lottery for five years and had only ever scooped a donkey,” stammered Colin excitedly. “He promised, though, that my life will change forever by simply handing him my bank details.”

Misty-eyed, he gushed: “Cars, homes, expensive clothes...” “...you’ll lose the lot,” I warned him. “It’s the second slice of good luck I’ve had in recent weeks,” my pal boasted, refusing to bow to cold reality. “I scooped the prize in an ‘Are you the mystery shopper in our photograph?’ newspaper competition.

“Someone pretending to be me, spotted me and gave the paper my details. I’ve just got to confirm my pin number to claim the prize.

“Confirm” by telling them it. They’ll let him know if it matches the one they’ve got.

I told Colin that sounded a little bit far-fetched.

“Far-fetched!” he babbled. “It’s downright weird.” “Don’t tell anyone,” he added in hushed tones, “but I cheated. I’ve never even been to Sao Paolo Sainsbury’s.”