Plymouth woman bombarded with prize draw scams

Plymouth City Council’s Trading Standards have revealed that a Plymouth woman was the target of hundreds of prize draw scams prior to her passing away.

Trading Standards was alerted by Mrs Norma White that her sister Colleen had been receiving hundreds of letters and phone calls from scammers even after she had passed away.

It is thought that Colleen was put on a list of those that had fallen for scams by those that had tricked her into giving money.

These lists are sold to scammers all over the world. This can result in victims  being delivered 100-plus scam letters a day and plagued by international phone calls. 

Norma said: "I was shocked at the amount of letters and parcels full of absolute rubbish that is still being sent to my sister's home. I found hundreds of them which she kept hidden.

"It's difficult to know how much money she spent on these scams – from what I can see it appears she was charged £5 to enter this competition, £10 for that – I have no idea how much, but judging by the amount of mail, it appears they have deliberately picked on the vulnerable, sussed them out over the phone, and then passed their details onto others.

"There were even cards to collect parcels from the Post Office. I had to pay to get them and they were full of rubbish and clearly sent from scam companies who had been continuously sending out mailings every day. What these people do is nothing less than wicked."

The City Council has asked residents to be extra vigilant for vulnerable people - such as the elderly - falling victim to the scams.

Cabinet Member for the Environment, Councillor Brian Vincent said: "We'd like to thank Mrs White for bringing this to our attention and we hope by highlighting it, we encourage others to be more vigilant.

"If something seems too good to be true, it usually is, so we would ask people to bin the letters. We would particularly like carers and neighbours of more elderly people to keep an eye on this sort of letter. They can get people in to a lot of difficulty.

Anyone who is receiving a lot of prize draw mail is invariably responding to them by sending money to enter to so called 'prize draws', he added.

The Citizens Advice Bureau reminds residents to report when they have received something they think could be a scam as it can help stop them getting to the most vulnerable members of society.

The simple rule to avoiding scams is to never give out any information or money to strangers asking for it and if in doubt, report it to the council.

People interested in getting more advice about scams should visit the Think Jessica campaign website.

Anyone who is worried about possible scams can also contact the Citizens Advice Consumer Service number 08454 040506.