ELYRIA — An Elyria woman was bilked out of more than $3,000 in an international mail scam, police said.

Barbara Moore, 58, told Elyria police Tuesday she wired $3,300 to a Western Union terminal in Ottawa, Canada, because she believed she’d won $125,000.

Moore received a $4,875 check and a letter from Canada telling her she’d won the money. The letter advised her to deposit the check and send money via a Western Union money order to Ottawa, the police report read.

Moore wired $3,300, but when a second request for an additional $1,500 came over the phone, Moore became suspicious, the report said.
When Moore contacted her bank, she learned the $4,875 check was a fraud. Moore was not available for comment Wednesday.

Moore is not alone, said Elyria police Lt. Andy Eichenlaub.

“Periodically over the past year, we’ve had other victims,” Eichenlaub said. “We get several of these every year. This is the first one I’ve seen in the recent past.”

This lottery scam out of Canada is well known, Eichenlaub said, as are similar Internet scams out of Nigeria.

“Generally, we share the information with the FBI. Locally, there’s not a lot we can do on a case like this. We don’t have the resources or the jurisdiction.”

Eichenlaub said there’s typically a rise in the number of these scams during the holiday season, when “people are more stressed financially than usual.”

Lorain County Sheriff’s Capt. Rich Resendez said law enforcement tries to do what it can to warn the public about these scams.

“The majority of the victims are older and they don’t want to tell their families they’ve lost this money and they don’t want to be embarrassed,” Resendez said.

The sheriff’s office offers tips on how to recognize potential mail and Internet scams on its Web site at www.lorain
countysheriff.com.

Contact Alicia Castelli at 329-7144 or acastelli@chroniclet.com.
 

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