Bay area business in middle of international scam

Monday, February 5, 2007

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Oakes said there's no rhyme or reason to the scam.

You've probably heard about international lottery scams.

Countless victims send thousands of dollars overseas for taxes on supposed winnings they'll never see.

That's what happened to Gail Oakes, who's part of a new Canadian lottery scam hitting the U.S. She wasn't even aware she was trapped in the scam until last week.

"Everyone who has received this somehow thinks that the Homosassa Riverside Resort is associated with this scam," Oakes said.

Trapped In A Scam

A Citrus County woman is warning people not to get trapped in the lottery scam she did.
Stay ahead of scammers.
E-Mail Jonathan Petramala, the TV reporter on this story.

But in reality, Oakes is a victim. Not because she sent money to the scammers, but because she's a victim of identity theft.

Somehow the scam artists got hold of one of her businesses checks with her signature. Hundreds, possibly thousands of copies were made. Then the scammers sent out bogus Riverside Resort checks worth $3,500 for people to cash or deposit to pay for the taxes on the fake winnings.

"There's no logic, there's no rational," Oakes said. "It's people see the money, it looks good, they take it to the bank and in many cases the banks just cash it."

Money that comes out of the Riverside Resorts bank account at Suntrust Bank. Oakes said thousands have already been taken out of her account because of people cashing the counterfeit checks.

Oakes is trying to be as proactive as she can. Two days after she found out about the scam, she posted a web site warning people about the it. She filed reports with the sheriff's office and the FBI, but she's not optimistic the foreign criminals will be caught.

"This crime is a crime of sympathy," Oakes said. "Everybody's just really sorry and the next thing they tell you is lessons three-five on how maybe you can prevent it from happening again."

She said the easiest way is lesson number one: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

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