A Shropshire man couldn’t believe his luck when a letter landed on his doormat telling him he had won thousands in the EuroMillions.The letter was delivered to Terry Wickel, of Telford, from Spain on Saturday and claimed that he had scooped a third prize of 815,950 euros from a near 26 million euro jackpot.
However, police today confirmed the letter was a scam and warned others to be on their guard.
Mr Wickel, 57, of Brookside, said he grew suspicious when he read the letter which said he had been selected from a ballot system drawn from one million names from Asia, America, Africa, Europe and the South Pacific.
He said: “The letter said the fund was deposited with a bank and insured with my name and to access my claim I had to call my agent, Dr Dan Gabino, of a union security and finance company.
“I thought it wasn’t right, so I decided to go straight to Telford police station and ask them if it was a fake before getting excited.
“The police advised me that it was and that I would probably be asked to pay an admin fee of around £50 before I could access the money.”
Mr Wickel, a plater and welder, is married with three children. He said the last time he had entered the EuroMillions was in January, so he was surprised when the letter arrived.
“I’m not disappointed because you don’t get something for nothing,” he said.
“But I want to make people aware of these sorts of scams and I am worried other people might receive similar letters.
“Maybe some older people wouldn’t think to get it checked out,” he added.
Constable Pete Simmonds, of Telford Police Station, said about a dozen people went into the station each week which similar letters.
He said: “The bottom line is, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. And if you haven’t entered a competition, you haven’t won it.
“These sorts of scams play on people’s hopes and often people confess they have sent money off.
“Some people seem to be targeted and they are often the most vulnerable members of society. People should be vigilant regarding these sorts of things.”
2 Comments
How many warnings have there been about this sort of thing? And still people fall for it! There’s one born every minute so they say…
As the saying goes ‘ You need to be in it to win it’ and people forget that with these types of things, they invariably havent entered anything, so how can they win?