Lottery scam widespread

Saturday, January 13, 2007

By PAUL BRUBAKER
HERALD NEWS

PATERSON – Deborah Zavattaro knew it was too good to be true, which is why she didn't fall for an elaborate scheme that could have bilked her family out of a couple of thousand dollars.

"He kept saying on the phone, 'You have nothing to lose,'" Zavattaro said of the alleged smooth-talking con man she only knew as David Roni, agent for Windows Casino Promotions in Ontario, Canada.

But Zavattaro, a homemaker, was on the verge of losing $2,650 in a ruse that began with a letter she received in early December informing her that she had won $50,000.

The widely used scheme, known to government officials as the "advance-fee scam" or the "international lottery scam," involves sending a letter to a consumer announcing a big cash prize. And what almost happened to Zavattaro and hundreds of others in New Jersey is getting closer scrutiny by authorities.

The Division of Consumer Affairs of the state Attorney General's Office reports a steady stream of complaints about advance-fee scams from people around the state – 123 in 2006 and 172 during 2005. The actual number of incidents per year is probably greater since not every victim files a report, spokesman Jeff Lamb said.

U.S. Postal Inspector Ed Steed said the federal agency has been jolted by a surge of victim complaints in New Jersey that began in October 2006.

"We've been approaching $250,000 consumer losses," he said.

Nationally, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service received 38,000 reports of international lottery fraud in 2006 amounting to $27 million in consumer losses.

The recent trend has prompted the USPIS to launch a public awareness campaign about international lottery scams that is scheduled to begin on Feb. 6 in Newark, Steed said.

Paul Bresson, FBI spokesman, was struck by the fact that Zavatarro was initially contacted through the mail.

"It's just not what we typically see anymore," Bresson said. "Most of these things are still perpetrated through the Internet."

Under the guise, the "prize winner" later receives a fraudulent check that is supposed to be a deduction from the winnings to cover a "processing fee." The consumer is then told to cash the check and wire the money via Western Union to the scammers, and then the remaining prize money will be sent. However, when the check is later discovered to be fraudulent, the consumer is liable for its dollar amount, authorities say.

Zavattaro said losing $2,650 – a rough equivalent of their monthly mortgage payment or enough gasoline for a trip to Florida in the family's motor home – would have been a financial hardship, but not devastating.

"It would hurt other people more so than us because we do all right," said Zavattaro, whose husband, Alfred, is a project manager for a fire protection systems company in Belleville.

Exactly what made Deborah Zavattaro a target of the scam is unknown. Lamb said her name could have been culled from a variety of databases or mailing lists.

"There's so much personal information readily accessible to con artists, unfortunately," he said.

The Zavattaros said that Roni, the alleged confidence man in Ontario, had all the right responses to counter their skepticism.

They asked why Deborah Zavatarro won the prize. Roni said she was randomly selected from a database of people who had previously entered the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes – a legitimate contest -- and that the $50,000 was an unclaimed prize.

Roni also made subtle plays in their conversation such as warning the Zavatarros not to tell "too many people" about the prize money until the cash was in hand. He also advised the couple to ignore any telephone calls from time-share sellers who said attending a seminar was a condition of collecting the prize.

"He said, 'Look, you're going to be calling me a week from now saying thanks,'" said Deborah Zavatarro. "After a while, you start to say, 'OK, this must be real.' He sounded like a real nice guy on the phone, too."

But the couple's suspicions were heightened when Roni sent them a check for $2,650 that was issued by Dynatemp International Co. in Carlisle, Pa., a refrigerants company. The check was to be cashed and the money wired to another person in Ontario to cover "processing and finder's fees," she was told. Once the cash was received, Zavatarro would be sent the remaining $47,350 of her "winnings."

But when Zavatarro relayed the scenario to local bankers, she discovered that cashing the check could lead to Dynatemp seeking to recoup the cash from her. Meanwhile, the $2,650 she sent to the person in Ontario would be long gone.

After learning of the legal and civil consequences, the Zavattaros never cashed the check.

Connie Walters, a Dynatemp spokeswoman, said that about 80 illegitimate checks bearing the company's name had been cashed throughout the nation since mid-December when company officials became aware of the scam. Some of the checks were in amounts as high as $4,000, she said. The company was still calculating its total losses from the scam.

Each check used in the scam had Dynatemp's correct checking account and routing numbers on the checks, Walters said of the fraud the company has uncovered.

"We have no idea how they (the numbers) were obtained," she said.

Walters said the FBI and the USPIS had been notified about the crime.

Whether the company would seek to collect the lost funds from the people who cashed the checks had not been decided, Walters said.

Meanwhile, the Zavatarros, who have a daughter engaged to be married and another daughter expecting her first child, are recovering from the brief moment they thought they had come into a financial windfall.

"It would have definitely been helpful," said Alfred Zavatarros. "I have a credit card I could have paid off. I put down a new floor in my bedroom. I could have paid that off. I wish we did win $50,000."

Reach Paul Brubaker at 973-569-7155 or brubaker@northjersey.com.

Original story: http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDU2NDMxJnlyaXJ5N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg==