Lottery scam victim commits suicide
Last Updated: Friday 1st October 2010, 23:01
An inquest has ruled that an 84 year old grandmother from Bedford committed suicide because she lost all her money in a lottery scam. Lieselotte Gerrard 84 was found dead after taking an overdose of pills, following becoming a victim of an international lottery fraud. It’s one of the most tragic cases involving a lottery scam we have ever heard at the National Lottery offices and means it’s time, again to warn potential victims of lottery scams to steer clear.
Mrs Gerrard, recently widowed had been targeted and made to believe that she had won a large amount on a foreign lottery, but as most lottery scams work she was required to send large amounts of cash to release her ‘winnings’. Mrs Gerrard continued to send money, chasing the win but of course it never existed.
After losing the cash in this lottery scam, Mrs Gerrard could no longer pay the management fees on her flat and that was when the downward spiral began. It’s a sad, sad story but should also serve as warning to others.
Lottery scams are prevalent around the UK and around the world and the advent of email has made them even easier, although postal scams are still as popular as ever and the old adage remains ‘if something seems too good to be true, it probably is’.
If you haven’t bought lottery tickets, then you can’t possibly be a lottery winner and no respectable lottery draw from anywhere in the world would expect you to pay any cash out before you collect your lottery win. Beware, lottery scams are still catching people out, ‘it could be you’ and not in a good way.