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littleroundman
07-06-2013, 01:39 AM
Pensioner loses $200,000 in scam

An 85-year-old pensioner has lost $200,000 of his life savings in a scam promising to share millions of pounds of a UK Lotto win.

The Adrian and Gillian Bayford email scam started circulating shortly after the couple from Suffolk, England, won a 148 million pound lottery jackpot in August last year.

The email claimed the Bayfords had decided to donate money to five individuals around the world, plus 10 close friends and family as part of a charity project to improve lives.

A WA pensioner received the email and started communicating with a person he believed was Adrian Bayford.

He transferred $200,000 to the fraudsters over a period of a few months, according to a warning issued by the Department of Commerce today.

The scammers sent him fake documents purporting to show money held for the victim in an account, the statement said.

The emails are still circulating and a new victim lost $5000 in the scam last month.

The public are asked to forward any examples of this scam to wascamnet@commerce.wa.gov.au and then delete it without replying.

Any email asking for money or that seems suspicious can be checked by a simple Google search.

The Department of Commerce is currently investigating a similar potential scam involving the names of American lottery winners, according to the statement.

Yahoo.com (http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/wa/17869548/pensioner-loses-200-000-in-scam/)