Christchurch warned of elaborate lottery scam

A sophisticated scam has hit Christchurch from Hong Kong.

In the elaborate ruse, the target receives a letter containing two scratch tickets for a lottery offered by the Midway Financial Investment Group of Hong Kong, ostensibly to celebrate its 30th anniversary. One ticket is the winner of a lot of money and a phone number is provided to claim the prize. Callers go through several calls and steps vetting their eligibility.

The caller is then asked to call a Sunny Lee, apparently employed by the Hong Kong Jockey Club, the so-called lottery's sponsor, to make a final claim.

However, Lee tells the target they have to join the club before the prize can be paid out. The joining fee is about $5000 and is refundable on the prize being paid.

A Christchurch man, who twigged to the scam at the last step, said the fraudsters sounded very plausible.

"Until the point of being asked to join the club, everything had been quite extraordinarily convincing," he said.

"The last step showed clearly this was a scam after all, albeit a brilliantly executed one. The three people I spoke to all spoke excellent English, and the brochure and associated documents were very convincing.

"Perhaps most importantly, these young con-artists were not too eager. They were doing things very calmly and deliberately, even to the doubts about whether I would be eligible.

"When I eventually said, `Come on, this is a scam' they calmly maintained the front that everything was utterly legitimate."

The Hong Kong Jockey Club told The Press it had no association with the company.

Communications manager June Teng said the club was licensed by the Government to operate the Mark Six lottery and had no part in other lottery operations.

"The one you mentioned is clearly a scam. Thank you for alerting us of this."

- © Fairfax NZ News