STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More Local News

• Cecelia Weeks, one of Goodland’s first residents, leaves Florida
• MICA survey says islanders give thumbs up for police, fire
• South Heathwood Drive temporarily closed Friday

Share and Enjoy [?]

Lord knows Gary Carlton could use the cash, but the check he received over the weekend was hardly pennies from heaven.

On Saturday afternoon, Carlton, an evangelist missionary from Eagleville, Tenn., received a letter informing him that he had won hundreds of thousand of dollars in a sweepstakes. His name, the letter said, had been pulled from a pool of 25,000 names worldwide.

"I said 'Where do I fly to pick it up? I'm ready for that money,'" Carlton said with a laugh.

Included with the letter was a check for $9,227. The letter instructed Carlton to cash the check and then to send $7,620 to a payment center in Toronto to cover "processing & handling charges."

"I pretty much knew what it was," Carlton said, referring to a variation of the infamous foreign lottery scam that has duped people out of thousands, if not millions, of dollars over the years.

But unlike similar scams that have made the news recently, this one hits a little closer to home.

The organization sending out the scam letters is dubbed the City of Marco Payment Centre. The checks accompanying the letters appear to be issued by Fifth Third Bank and have what appears to be a valid City of Marco Island watermark on the front.

In the last few days, the city has been contacted by people from around the country who have received similar letters and checks. The letters claim the sweepstakes is a promotional event sponsored by Fortune 500 companies.

None of the letters or checks is valid, Marco City Manager Bill Moss said.

"We don't have a sweepstakes. We don't have a payment center," he said. "If you look at the letterhead, it says City of Marco, we are the City of Marco Island. ... Anybody would know the city would not be involved in any sort of sweepstakes, let alone a Fortune 500 sweepstakes."

Carlton said he'd never entered a sweepstakes with Marco Island, and didn't even know where Marco Island was.

Moss learned of the scam when he was contacted recently by a woman from another state who was upset that the city's check for $18,000 didn't clear her bank when deposited.

"It does look realistic to someone who doesn't know exactly what our checks look like," Moss said. "It's got our bank routing number and it's clearly got a copy of my signature on it."

Foreign lottery scams start when an unsuspecting resident receives a letter from a business in Canada or somewhere overseas telling them they've won a large cash prize. The resident also receives a check for a few thousand dollars, which they are instructed to cash and then send some back to cover taxes and other expenses.

After mailing the money back, the resident learns that the initial check was counterfeit and he or she is responsible for paying back the money.

"They could lose money if they do send checks to the scammer, the criminal," Marco Police Chief Roger Reinke said. "For the life of me, I find it hard to believe anybody would think this would be true, but the criminals continue to do it."

Marco police have notified the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the federal agency responsible for investigating mail fraud and postal offenses. Other than that, there's little police can do to battle foreign scammers.

The city and bank have procedures in place to ensure that they won't suffer any financial losses due to counterfeit checks, Marco police Detective Glen Zirgibel said. The Marco Island Police Department handles about a dozen cases involving similar scams every year, he said.

"You've got a check from Marco Island, but the money is going to Canada. That should make you stop and think," Zirgibel said. "If you haven't entered a contest, why would you think you'd be one of the 25,000 people in the entire world to win this money."

A man who answered the telephone at the Toronto-based City of Marco Payment Centre identified himself as Eddie Jonathan, the author of the letter. When asked why his organization was sending out bogus Marco Island checks, Jonathan hung up.

"Think about it from the point of view of a scam artist. They get two out of a hundred, they've made a lot of money," Zirgibel said. "We've got to keep telling people over and over again, it's a scam, it's a scam, it's a scam."

Last Wednesday, Marguerite Bozarth of Augusta, Mich., received a letter from the City of Marco Payment Centre informing her she'd won $317,000 in a sweepstakes. She also received a check for $9,227 and instructions to send back $7,620.

Bozarth, who is retired, said that if the money was real, it would have made a real difference in her life.

"We're building a house, so it would upgrade what I'm putting into it," she said.

Even though the check looked real, Bozarth was never tempted to cash it because she figured something wasn't right.

"I'm not waiting for a prize from anybody," Bozarth said. "I do play the lottery once in awhile, but those would be published in the paper, wouldn't they. ... Things don't fall out of the sky except in fairy tales."