Lottery news from http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/

Oh great, so this is like the old Internet scam, but now it has reached snail mail. So the goverment is all worried about online poker and the evil gambling, but scam artists like this are free to rip off people! They should put forth some of their efforts in catching these people instead of targeting online poker!

It's really hard for me to understand how anyone could actually fall for this type of scam. They're telling you that you've won money, but you're going to have to send part of the winnings back to them? That's just stupid. If it were legit, why would they not just hold it out before they sent you money. I wouldn't fall for anything that suggested that I send money. That just screams "SCAM".

Yeah, I know, I think the same thing. But if it is happening to older people or those that aren't used to being on the Internet, it may not actually scream "scam" to them.

And what it comes down to is, it doesn't matter if they are stupid for falling for it or not, the people doing it are just WRONG!

Oh, I totally agree. The people who are running the scams are without morals. But, after seeing a poor little old man or woman on the news who has been cheated out of their life's savings by one of these con artists, you'd think that people would be better prepared to recognize a scam. You don't have to really have knowledge of the internet, I see these scam stories on the news all the time. And they always tell you to never send anyone money, bank account information, personal information, etc. And they always remind you that "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is". I realize older people are more vulnerable, but that's where family members need to intervene. People have talks with their children about not trusting strangers, maybe they need to have those same kind of talks with their parents and/or grandparents. I think scam artists should be prosecuted once they're caught, but I don't believe the problem is ever going to just go away. Everyone needs to protect themselves from falling prey to these lowlifes.

What I don't like really is the police response to this:

I agree with you Bernie. It sounds as if the assistant police chief isn't very well informed on the subject of internet lotteries, but for the people who could fall for something so obvious as this one, maybe it's better to have them not trust anything that to try to tell the difference between legitimate lotteries and scams.