Dejardins Finacial Inc

We received notice of a sweepstakes winning from Desjarins Financial Inc including a phoney "check" from "Chef's Produce of Houston" for $3,780.00 The letter claimed that the check was only a past of the over $175,000.00 in winnings sent to us to that we could pay international taxes owed - and that these taxes had to be paid prior to being issued the remainder of the winnings. The letter told me to call a person named who asked me for the claim number located in the letter. He told me that the check was now released so I should go to my bank to deposit the check then wire the required "non resident tax to the UK in the amount of $1,990.00 via Western Union money transfer. Supposedly AFTER the tax was paid we would receive the rest of our winnings.

I was immediately suspicious so went on line to look up information on sweepstakes fraud and learned a few important things: 1 - you can only win a sweepstakes that you have actually entered - which we had not. 2. cashing a fraudulent check will bring financial consequences even if you were unaware that it was fraudulent. 3. No legitimate sweepstakes requires remittance of any money in order to claim the prize - including paying taxes. 4. Criminals LOVE using Western Union as the money is nearly impossible to trace who received the money and impossible to get the money back.
As always - if something seems too good to be true - it probably is!