I also kanna... but lucky I wasn't conned... but I feel sad for the others...
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Teen who lost $3,800 admits own folly in believing conman's promises
By Crystal Chan
September 07, 2007
SHE was irked by the pop-up windows that kept appearing when she logged into a social networking website, prompting her to take part in a survey.
Miss H T Ng, who lost $3,800 in a lottery scam, said she was aware that others had lost money in similar ways.
Fed up, Miss H T Ng, 19, a student, did so on 9 Aug, hoping to stop the nuisance.
However, the personal information she gave pulled her into a lottery scam, costing her to lose $3,800.
Police figures show that a rising number ofpeople like Miss Ng have fallen for lotteryscams.
For the first eight months this year, the police have received 83 reports from victims who lost amounts ranging from $6 to $353,000 in such scams.
This is almost double the 42 reports made about such scams last year.
The police warns the public to be on guard as legitimate lottery companies do not ask for upfront payments before paying winners.
Its message is, 'If something is too good to be true, it probably is.'
Miss Ng is one of the youngest victims of such scams.
OVERSEAS CALL
She had included her real name and phone number in the survey and received anoverseas call on her handphone a few dayslater.
'The caller spoke with a Chinese accent,' she said. 'She told me I had won $200,000 after taking part in the survey and that the lucky draw had been held in HongKong.'
Thinking she would have to go to HongKong to claim the prize, Miss Ng said she was not interested and hungup.
Miss Ng said she had heard of people being conned in lottery scams and was suspicious.
But the woman, who claimed to be from a company called Huipu-C, phoned her again twohours later.
Miss Ng said: 'She persuaded me to claim the money, saying it was a big amount and that other winners had claimed theirs.
'She also gave me the company's website address, assuring me the whole thing wasn't ascam.'
Miss Ng got her mother, who was more fluent in Mandarin, to take another call from the woman the next day and her mother decided she should claim the $200,000.
But first, they had to pay $3,800 as an insurance deposit for 'taxpurposes'.
Miss Ng figured the prize would come in handy for her future studies, and did as told on 18 Aug, sending the money through Western Union, a remittancefirm.
CALLED AGAIN
However, instead of collecting the prize as expected the next day, she got another call to send another $4,500.
That was when she realised she had been conned.
She said: 'This time, a man claiming to be a manager at the Hong Kong Turf Club said I couldn't get my prize because I wasn't a club member.
'He said I was contacted because of a technical error. He also said I had to pay more money to get the prize.'
By then, Miss Ng knew she had lost the money she sent earlier, saved from working as a part-time sales promoter for more than ayear.
She said: 'I didn't want to lose any more money. I already felt so much heartache at losing the $3,800.'
She made a police report immediately after hanging up, but by then, the crooks had withdrawn the money.
She said she still feels 'sore' about losing the money and said it was greed and naivety that caused her to fall for the scam.
Taken From the Electric New Paper
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