Scammers pick up the pace
As the holidays approach, victims are lured by promise of big rewards
By Michelle Knight  knight@theacorn.com

Part 1 of two parts

While Senior Dep. Bob Maclean sat in the home of an elderly resident, trying to convince her that she was indeed the victim of a lottery scam, the woman's phone rang.

On the other end was the scam artist who had already bilked the woman out of $30,000, Maclean said.

The man on the phone promised the woman she would receive hundreds of thousands in lottery winnings if she sent more money to cover yet another fee.

When Maclean spoke to the scam artist on the phone, the police officer was told the deal was none of his business. The scam artist hung up. There was little else Maclean could do.

The deputy later heard from detectives the woman wired the caller another $10,000 and apparently never received the promised windfall.

"There's no way to get it back," said Maclean of the money the woman lost last summer. "Once you wire it, it's gone."

Few people know that sending money via a wire service is like handing over cash: It usually can't be traced once the recipient picks up the money.

Law enforcement agencies around the country are warning the public about the widespread problem of bogus lottery wins and other fakecheck scams. Although anyone could be susceptible, scammers typically target the elderly because they tend to be more trusting.

The scams vary in detail but generally work this way: The victim receives a check and letter that look authentic, telling them they've won a lottery in a foreign country. Before collecting the winnings, however, the victim must pay taxes, fees or other charges. The enclosed check more than covers the fee amount, and the letter asks the victim to wire back the difference. Often they do.

Meanwhile, it takes several days for the bank to discover the check is fraudulent, and by that time the thieves have disappeared with the money.

In the recent case of an elderly Thousand Oaks man, foreign lottery scammers weren't satisfied with cleaning out his bank account. They wanted more.

The man had already sent in money to pay for one surcharge after another to receive the jackpot the letter said he'd won. Suspecting the operation was a scam, the man filed a police report, but the scammers were relentless and very convincing.

Once they learned the man's bank account was empty, they mailed him a check for the delayed "winnings" and promised an even larger windfall if he sent in another transaction fee.

Although police warned him not to, the man wired more money.

"These guys are good at what they do," Thousand Oaks Detective Eric Buschow said. "They say all the right things."

When the elderly are the target of fraud, police try to notify their family. In the case of the Thousand Oaks man, the police were unable to find any relatives, and now the elderly man, who lives on a fixed income, owes the bank thousands of dollars, Buschow said.

Victims can feel the effects of a scam for years afterward. Banks have sued those unable to pay back the money from a bogus check; others have been blacklisted from opening up bank accounts.

When the innocent become scammers

Police said that Christine Gage innocently answered an e-mail offer to work at home but soon learned her new home-based business was a front for a Nigerian money scheme that eventually landed the Oxnard woman in jail.

On Tuesday, Gage was charged with six felony counts of forgery in a scheme police say helped a criminal enterprise to siphon money out of the United States.

A Thousand Oaks man complained to police he'd been scammed out of money wired to Gage. Police traced Gage to an Oxnard motel room, where they found more than 3,000 fake checks, totaling some $500,000, Buschow said.

According to police, Gage's Nigerian "employer" had given her bank account numbers and an established UPS shipping account, lending the operation an air of legitimacy.

Gage allegedly figured out that the operation was illegal but didn't stop writing the checks, becoming a criminal at that point, Buschow said.

He said Gage probably continued because she had invested so much of her time and had received little in compensation. Most of her "salary" went to buy printing supplies, he said.

"The big motivator in all of this is greed, and it's on the part of the victim too," Buschow said, referring to Gage.

But she is simply in the middle, expendable and easily replaced, police say. The masterminds are much more difficult to catch and, in cases that originate outside the U.S., nearly impossible to bring to justice.

Next week, the Acorn looks at how the Internet age allows scam artists to remain hidden from police and what's being done to stop them.