My quest to track down the tricksters who targeted my mum in a cruel lottery scam
LAST week’s article on scam letters from lottery companies claiming recipients had won six-figure prizes brought a huge response from readers who have received similar mailings. JEFF PRESTRIDGE – whose own 83-year-old mother was one of those targeted – went in search of the crooks
IT IS a hot, sweaty Wednesday morning in London’s swanky West End, minutes from the shopping delights of Oxford Street. I am on a mission – to speak to representatives of two companies that have been sending out letters telling people they are big lottery winners. Mailings that promise everything, but are no more than traps set by criminals to defraud innocent people of their hard earned money.
One of the companies’ offices, according to its correspondence, is on Hanover Square, a former home to ambassadors and a venue in the 18th Century for concerts from the likes of Johann Christian Bach.
The square is heaving as a result of the building of the Queen Elizabeth line – part of the massively delayed and over-budget Crossrail project. Individuals wearing helmets and high visibility jackets swarm everywhere. Shouldn’t they be tunnelling away like fury?
The other office is a ten-minute walk away in Manchester Square, home of the magnificent Wallace Collection, which is exhibiting the shoe designs of Manolo Blahnik. The exhibition is billed ‘An enquiring mind’. It is an inspiring strapline as I make my own enquiries.
I’m determined to find out more about the two firms in question – the International Postcode Online Lottery (IPOL), whose Hanover Square staff allegedly report to Melbourne, Australia, and International FIFA World Cup Online Lottery, whose Manchester Square office is accountable to Chicago. Why? For two reasons.
First, because the scam letters, promising prizes of £900,000 and £825,000 respectively, are being sent out by the vanload. In recent days, readers from all over the country have contacted The Mail on Sunday to say they have received such correspondence.
Most have ignored the letters, others have rung to claim prizes, only to be told to ring back later or not have calls answered. Some, much to their irritation, received the letters without stamps attached, requiring them to pay postage.
The internet is awash with complaints about the mailings, some from the children of elderly, vulnerable parents who thought they had struck gold. These are people not accustomed to scams as many do not use the internet.
The mailings all implore recipients to keep news of their winnings to themselves so as to ‘avoid unwarranted abuse of the [lottery] program or fraudulent acts from criminal minded and unauthorized persons’. The cheek.
Says one complainant: ‘My mother is 91 and was excited to think she had won money. I did explain you do not win money from competitions you don’t enter. A definite scam.’ Another says: ‘The letter was addressed to my father, who has Alzheimer’s. Had he not recently moved to a nursing home, he might have been taken in.’ Most people bemoan the lack of regulatory or police action to stamp down on the fraud. The second reason I’m inter
ested is closer to home: my mother – Helen Joyce Prestridge.
When my mother barks, her offspring stand to attention like meerkats. That is how it works in the Prestridge family. Always has done, always will. Familial discipline.
So when my sprightly mother received the letter from IPOL (as reported in my column last week), she barked loudly – and a little excitedly. Her two sons, David and Jeffrey John (yours truly), came rushing to her side.
First, to disappoint her and tell her that the letter was not in fact the first step on the yellow brick road to financial freedom, but an awful scam. Second, to promise her the perpetrators would be pursued. Hence my visit to Hanover Square to see if I can speak to Andrew Hunter, foreign service manager of Westpac Financial Consultants – the individual who, according to the letter, will allegedly get my mother’s prize from IPOL rolling.
My journey is not wasted because it confirms the IPOL letter is one almighty scam. Why? Because the offices at 22 Hanover Square no longer exist. They have been reduced to rubble to make way for a new Mandarin Oriental hotel and 80 luxury residences. The site manager, a kindly man, smiles at me. ‘Well, 22 and 23 Hanover Square were demolished two and a half years ago,’ he says. ‘Two years from now a spick and span hotel will be here with flats to die for. As for Andrew Hunter, there’s no one working here with that name.’
I trundle off to Manchester Square, home of International FIFA World Cup Online Lottery, in search of better luck. Michael Faraday is the individual I am after. He works for the lottery’s processing office at Marylebone House and is the key to any claim being processed.
Try as I might, Marylebone House is nowhere to be found. There’s a satellite head office for perfume maker Jo Malone at Number 13 and blue plaques in honour of composer Sir Julius Benedict who lived and died at Number 3 and statesman Alfred Milner (Number 14). But no Marylebone House.
Eventually, a kindly doorman at Number 21 asks his boss to help.
‘It’s fake,’ I am told. ‘There’s no Marylebone House on this square.’
Back at the office, I ring the numbers for Hunter, Faraday and that of Doctor Benjamin Joseph who is allegedly processing claims on behalf of People’s Postcode Lottery as part of a £45million prize pot.
Hunter’s number has a recorded message stating he is unavailable and that callers should leave their details. But 24 hours later I get through only to be told that he is out and I should ring back.
A friend, pretending to be my mother, has better luck. After getting through on the same number but not to Hunter, she is told to confirm the name, postcode and reference number on the winning letter.
After being asked whether she wants her win published in the newspapers or kept private – she opts for the latter – she is told a cheque for £900,000 will be sent out in the next few days. Upon receipt, she must ring Hunter’s number again so the win can be ‘taken out of the public system and kept private’. ‘Have a nice day,’ she is told, and the man hangs up.
I imagine that if my mother did receive the cheque, it would be unbankable.
If she were to ring back, she would probably be asked for her bank account details or a fee for the cheque to be released (people have been asked for £900).
As for Hunter’s employer – Westpac Financial Consultants – no such firm is registered with Companies House. It’s a clone of Australian bank Westpac, used by the fraudsters to give the letter a degree of authenticity. Melbourne is also not home to IPOL – the lottery does not exist.
Faraday and Dr Joseph prove equally illusive. I do eventually get through on Dr Joseph’s number, but am told to ring back as he is in a meeting. When I do, he’s still tied up (locked up would be better).
As for the firm he works for – Coral & Reed Financial Services, working on behalf of PPL – it again does not exist. People’s Postcode Lottery is a bona fide firm, but the fraudsters have lifted its logo – another case of cloning. The fact that commission equivalent to five per cent of the £375,000 prize draw will be payable by those claiming their prize gives an indication of the fraudsters’ intentions.
For the record, International FIFA World Cup Online Lottery is a figment of a fraudster’s imagination. The fact it requests bank account details before paying out £825,000 again indicates its true intentions.
Action Fraud said it had issued a number of alerts on such scams going back nine years.
Louise Baxter at National Trading Standards said: ‘We work to prevent fraudulent mail entering the UK postal system. We also focus on disrupting scam mail that does enter the domestic postal system.’
Citizens Advice – god bless – said 38 per cent of all mail scams it received details of last year involved fake lotteries. Gillian Guy, its boss, said: ‘Lottery scams are worryingly common and usually target people who are isolated or in vulnerable situations.
‘Remember that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.’
Scammers, all of them: IPOL, International Fifa World Cup Online Lottery and clone of People’s Postcode Lottery. Someone somewhere in authority should put an end to this plague of lottery locusts. Now.