Better Business Bureau Oregon

Scam Alert: You should never pay upfront for prize winnings

The couple sat in the Better Business Bureau conference room. She was sobbing uncontrollably. He was visibly shaken, but doing his best to remain calm. We’ll call the husband and wife, who are in their 60s, Bob and Sue to protect their identity.

Their story is one of the most heart-breaking of my relatively short time at the BBB.

The gentleman is a United States military veteran and had spent a significant portion of this year in another city undergoing cancer treatment. While Bob was fighting for his life, a scam artist contacted Sue, promising millions of dollars in winnings through the Jamaican lottery. Staring down the barrel of all the costs associated a major health challenge, Sue listened and grabbed onto the glimmer of hope that her financial worries could be wiped away. The lottery winnings were waiting, all she had to do was go to Walmart and wire cash to cover taxes and fees.

The two had been living on meager Social Security benefits and didn’t have cash to send, so Sue walked into a pay-day loan shop on a corner near her home. Taking out that first loan was the equivalent of tripping at the top of a very long flight of stairs. It was the start to a painful and tumultuous topple to the bottom of what is now despair.

Sue wired the cash from the first pay-day loan. Instead of a pay-off, she invested in another call from the “Jamaican Lottery.” This time, there was another reason for another payment. Another payment meant another pay-day loan. Now, the first seeds of desperation are planted. Sue has two outstanding loans, a husband recovering from surgery, radiation and chemotherapy and the rest of life’s bills keep piling up. The scam artist has leveraged himself into the perfect position to make the next call. Sue’s under so much stress, she’s not thinking clearly and she’s invested to see this to the end; to see a lottery winnings check arrive at her door step.

“We need one more payment to transfer your cash winnings into the U.S.,” Sue is told. She visits a third pay-day loan shop and wires the money.

Let me pause here to let you know this is happening more than many realize. One Boise man wired $2,168 dollars to receive his winnings. A woman in her 20s lost $195 thinking she had won a $400 Walmart gift card. A man in his 30s walked into Western Union and wired $300 to collect his $2.4 million and a new Mercedes. When he was contacted the next day for another $200, he got suspicious and contacted the BBB. I could go on and on. The stories are local. The scammers don’t care if you’re young or old, male or female. The criminals peddle audacious dreams of winning big bucks. The money being sent is real. There’s never a pay-off.

Better Business Bureau warns consumers against Salem online pet ...

I recommend that online shoppers install a program called Web Of Trust (WOT) (after checking it out of course). This program keeps information about online business and organizations that is always being updated. When you navigate to a site, WOT will warn you if it has a bad reputation. If it has a good reputation, there's a green light. If it has a bad reputation, there's a red light. I checked yourdogsuppliesstore.com, and it has an "unknown symbol" because no one has reported anything about this site.

If you've had a bad experience with this site, help others by notifying Web of Trust (easy to find online).

With that many complaints, it is probably not a good business, but it only takes 2 complaints, resolved, proven fraudulent or whatever to get an F rating from them, and good luck ever getting those changed, even with a change of business ownership, unless you pay their fees to join. And unless you pay you can never get a positive rating, only neutral. S-C-A-M. Try Angie's list or something else that is in business to actually help and protect consumers.

With that many complaints, it is probably not a good business, but it only takes 2 complaints, resolved, proven fraudulent or whatever to get an F rating from them, and good luck ever getting those changed, even with a change of business ownership, unless you pay their fees to join. And unless you pay you can never get a positive rating, only neutral. S-C-A-M. Try Angie's list or something else that is in business to actually help and protect consumers.

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