[Vision2020] Winning the lottery

[Robert Dickow]

Another scam has been hitting music teachers via email. Here's the scenario
of the scam I got recently:
 
(1) Scammer sends email to victim (assumed unwitting music prof) explaining
that his son/daughter will be staying with a friend of his in the region
over the summer. The child is a talented musician who wants to take lessons
with music prof. The scammer asks prof to send him some contact information
plus the music prof's lesson fees.
(2) After sending the info to the scammer, the scammer replies that he is
delighted and will be in touch..
(3) Shortly after that, the scammer writes that things are working out
great, and that he can even pay in advance because the 'friend in the area'
owes him $5,000 or whatever for some farm equipment. So, the scammer offers
to have the friend send the victim a $5,000 or whatever cashiers check made
out to to the music prof, from which the victim is instructed to cash the
check, keep the total lesson fees, and then send the change via electronic
transfer or Western Union etc to him (usually overseas.)
(4) Two weeks later, the unwitting music prof discovers that the bank check
was a fake, and so is out of pocket for the total of the bogus check.
 
Followup story:
 
I played along with the scam, knowing how it worked, and contacted the
Moscow Police Dept, who gave me an email for a contact person in the
national Secret Service Bureau. The  SS contact no longer existed, so I
contacted Idaho's branch office of the SS. They left a message on my machine
that they would call back, but I was no longer able to contact the Idaho SS
nor was I phoned back from them. I let the whole thing die, SS wasn't very
interested I guess, and I never even got the bogus cashier's check in the
mail.
 
Boy, was I disappointed. Sensing that the student probably had talent, I was
planning to offer lessons for free... a 'scholarship' of sorts... ;-)
 
Bob Dickow, troublemaker

-----Original Message-----
From: vision2020-bounces at moscow.com [mailto:vision2020-bounces at moscow.com]
On Behalf Of Ellen Roskovich
Subject: [Vision2020] Winning the lottery


This must be my lucky day. . . I just went out to my mailbox and found a
letter saying I won $50,000.00 and International Lottery, Inc. is holding
the check for me.
 
Of course there's the small matter of paying required Federal and State
taxes on the winnings before they can release the check to me.
 
Usually these scams come to me via the internet. . . 

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