Roswell police say that a 45-year-old woman was duped out of $9,000 in a lottery ticket scam.
According to the police report, the victim was approached by two men on May 4 around 11:30 a.m. near a Goodwill store along Alpharetta Highway. One man asked her if she knew directions to a lawyer’s office. As they were talking, a second man walked over and began talking about money he won on a lottery ticket.
The man told the victim that he needed a legal citizen to claim the prize, according to the police report. The victim said she could do it, but then a woman the man was speaking on the phone with told the victim they needed a deposit of $40,000 to secure the money. The victim said she couldn’t get that much, but could get a $9,000 deposit.
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“He convinced her to pay up front, and somehow that he would pay her back,” Roswell police spokesperson Lisa Holland told Channel 2.
The two men and the victim went to the Wells Fargo across the street and the woman withdrew $1,500 from her checking account and another $7,500 off her credit card. She placed the money in an envelope on her center console, police said.
One suspect told the victim he needed to use the bathroom, so she took the two men to Baskin Robbins. When the men came out, the victim said she had to go home to get her phone. The men said they would wait for her at the Subway nearby.
When she got home, the victim’s husband warned her that this was fraud. The victim went back to her car to get the envelope and it was full of printer paper and all $9,000 in cash was missing.
The suspects are described as being age 50 to 70 years old with medium builds.
“When something seems too good to be true, you need to avoid it,” Holland said.
Roswell police say there was a similar incident recently where a young man was approached by a woman with a lottery ticket, but said she couldn’t cash it because she didn’t have a driver’s license. The man did not fall for the scam, police said.
Roswell police have not yet identified suspects in either of these cases.
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