Man loses thousands in foreign lottery scam

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- It is a phone call many dream of getting -- a phone call during which you are informed you are a winner, and your ticket to Easy Street is on its way! But FOX6's Contact 6 says if you're not careful, you'll be headed to the poor house.

"The winnings would run anything from $1.5 million to $11 and $12 million," Leroy Thurston said.

Thurston, like a lot of others, was lured in by con artists claiming he had won a foreign lottery.

"They are real sweet and promise you everything and the next thing you know, they tell you to pay this fee and that fee. It didn`t seem like a lot sometimes. Sometimes it was a couple hundred dollars. Sometimes it was a lot more," Thurston said.

"Winners" are asked to pay more and more, until they have no money left.

"A lot of these seniors targeted live alone and these guys are really good at befriend them, calling them often, telling them nice things and pay them a lot of attention," U.S. Postal Inspector Rodney Bohanon said.

Thurston lost thousands in the four foreign lottery scams he got involved in.

"It`s very disheartening to see a senior who is living on a fixed income and worked their whole life for their savings and to turn around and just lose it," Bohanon said.

"If I had anything to do with it, they would all be in jail. That's the way I feel about it. Just plain greed -- that is all there is to it," Thurston said.

Some advice: Never pay a fee to receive money you supposedly won. That is a sure sign of a scam.