Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Winning The Canadian Lottery

Saturday, a person I know told me he'd won C$1,000,000 in the Canadian lottery. This isn't the first time I've met a lottery winner, winning a lottery is actually fairly easy.

It seems, according to my e-mail, that I have been fortunate enough to win quite a few lotteries I never even bothered to enter. Generous of them to award the prize to someone who didn't even buy a ticket.

But I actually did win a lottery once: I bought 5 tickets, and one of them was a $3 winner.

And I had an uncle who spent more than $1000 every week for 50 years, and one time won $250,000, or about 10% of what he'd put in. He'd purchased over 2,000,000 tickets, one of which finally won.

But this person explained that, unlike my own e-mails, he really had purchased tickets, two in fact, for C$10 each, and gave the half you hand in to someone who promised to see that his money and tickets reached the Canadian Lottery Authority.

On the tickets, he put his e-mail, his mobile, & etc. A few weeks later, he got an SMS and an e-mail, saying he'd won the grand prize of C$1,000,000. The letter said that he had to contact the bank administering the prizes. The letter gave the bank's phone number and website.

Since he normally doesn't give out his e-mail, and since the e-mail had his correct name, address, and the number on his lottery ticket, this was not at all like the e-mails that I normally get.

Naturally, he called the bank. Since he called the bank's phone number (given in the e-mail) he knew that he was actually talking to the bank. It was not like he'd gotten an unexpected call from someone claiming to be at a bank.

When he gave the administrator at the bank his winning number, the administrator confirmed that everything was legitimate. They said the money would be transferred to his account if he'd give his account number and PIN, which, of course, he promptly gave the bank. They promised to transfer the money by 15 May.

Only I asked to see the e-mail, and typed the banks' name and address into Google, and the bank did not appear. Next we tried the bank's name, without the address, and the bank still didn't appear. Searching white pages, yellow pages, and any other colour pages we could find, we still didn't see anything about this bank.

Next I tried the bank's website, which, I admit, looks like a legitimate bank website (they probably used the CD, "Put your Bank on the Internet," which works for people even if they don't actually have a bank).

Still, the ticket holder is hoping his money will appear in his bank by 15 May.

Meanwhile, this lottery already has C$10 for every ticket they sold, plus the names, addresses, e-mails, and phone numbers of everyone who entered. And people who enter the Canadian National Lottery in Dubai are not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer.

As usual, I regret not asking him for all the details about where and how he entered this lottery: it sounds like a good business to get into.

2 Comments:

Blogger Seabee said...

I hope he was quick enough to change his PIN before they emptied his bank account.

4:52 pm  
Blogger nzm said...

or transfer his money to another account in the meantime.

5:55 pm  

Post a Comment

<< Home