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CONGRATULATIONS. You have won a luxury car in an overseas contest for which you did not sign up.
But wait - you cannot claim the car because you are a foreigner. What happens is that the prize will be converted to cash and you can collect it once you fly there.
Will you go?
One woman smelt a rat and did not take the bait. She even went one step further and lodged a report with the police in Singapore.
Ms Charmaine Heng, 40, a personal assistant at a hotel management consultancy company here, said she received a call about two months ago from a woman who spoke in Mandarin.
The woman, who said she was calling from Macau, told Ms Heng she had been entered into a contest and would have to attend an event.
The caller gave her a contest number which coincidentally contained the last four digits of her handphone number.
Ms Heng, a mother of two girls aged 9 and 7, said she had taken part in contests here, but she did not know how the woman got her contact number as she had never been to Macau.
She added: ?I did not really pay attention to her because I thought it was a time-share thing. Ten years ago, I lost some money in time-shares, so I was not that interested.?
| Ignore such lucky draws: police
POLICE spokesman Deputy Superintendent (DSP) William Goh confirmed they had received a report from Ms Charmaine Heng, but had not received similar complaints.
He advised the public to ignore lucky draw or lottery notifications from foreign countries.
He said such scams usually involve victims being persuaded to make advance payments to claim a prize.
He said this year saw a new variation with scammers using SMS messages to inform victims that they had won prizes in lucky draws.
When the victims call the number listed in the SMS, the scammer would instruct them to transfer money for administrative fees in order to claim the prize.
He said the public should ignore such notifications and should not make advanced payment for prize money or reply to such letters, e-mail, SMSes and calls.
They should lodge a police report at any Neighbourhood Police Centre.
The police will investigate once a report had been lodged, regardless of whether money was transacted.
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On the last week of October, another Mandarin- speaking woman called Ms Heng and told her she had won the third prize in a lucky draw in the event she did not attend.
And it was a BMW 3 Series car worth HK$420,000 ($81,400).
Ms Heng said: ?She said she was from Macau, from a hotel resort company. She said the results had been aired on national TV there. But later, I could not find such a company on the Internet.?
Ms Heng added that the woman had told her that since she was not a Macau resident, she would not be able to claim the car.
Stern lawyer
But the contest organisers would be able to convert the car into cash and would mail her the cheque in a week.
Nothing arrived after a week and last week, Ms Heng called thewoman who directed her to call a lawyer in Macau, who was apparently administering the prize.
Ms Heng said: ?He sounded rather stern and said I had to listen carefully as he had no time to joke or to listen to jokes.
?He said because I was a non-resident of Macau, there was a tax issue involved which was why he did not send the package.
?He said I had to pay a 3.5 per cent tax ($2,850) on the prize money I was getting. And I would have to go down to his office to get the money.
?Once I heard I would have to go to Macau, I got worried. There was no official letter and everything was based on hearsay.?
Ms Heng got even more worried when the lawyer said he would send a man to pick her up from the airport when she arrived.
She said: ?I didn?t know where I would end up. I didn?t know if I would be kidnapped.?
Ms Heng said she had asked the lawyer questions about his firm and the collection process, but this annoyed him.
?He refused to send me an e-mail, which I had asked for, on the claims process.
?He got irritated and raised his voice. He said I was wasting his time and threatened to bill mefor the phone call.?
Ms Heng was so disturbed by the phone conversation that she decided to make a police report here and wanted to warn others.
She said: ?If you are greedy, you will fall prey to scams. The money might be worth a lot to some people, but I think I value my life more.?
This article was first published in The New Paper on November 14, 2008.
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