PRIA PRIZE RESEARCH INTELLIGENCE AGENCY I RECEIVED A LETTER IN THE MAIL. IT STATED THAT I HAD $2,342,000.00 ALL I HAD TO DO IS SIGN AND MAIL BACK BEFORE DECEMBER 2, 2008. MIDNIGHT. ALONG WITH A MONEY ORDER IN THE AMOUNT OF $20.00 DO IT RIGHT AWAY THIS WAS MY FINAL NOTIFICATION. SO I HAVE BEEN RIPPED OFF THE AMOUNT OF $20.00 DOLLARS. MIAMI Florida

I think you need to do a few things.

1. Turn your ringer off on your phone ...and only call your family and friends. If you can't hear it , you can't answer to these scammers. Report to your family daily if need be so they know you are alright.

2. Another poster suggested contacting Binder and Binder. Good idea. Its free for the consultation. And he / they / can protect your rights .

3. You may need a court appointed gaurdian for you and your husbands financial needs. It is possible that you are not as capable to handle your money right now going through stress and depression.

4. STOP your email immediately. Get a brand new address.

5. ONLY open utitlity bills and letters from your family that you know . Throw away ALL other real mail that comes in your home mailbox.

6. Have yourself diagnosed by a psychological counselor to find out where you are in terms of taking care of yourself mentally , financially , physically. See if you aren't having emotional or mental issues which may prevent you from making sound decisions. You cannot / or may not / make this determination but a counselor or doctor might be able to.

I received this letter as well. I searched the net and found the following Information that may help you.

As far as your Social Security problem, Contact Binder and Binder. They have a toll free number you can find by 1-800-555-1212.


Sweepstakes Scam Letters:
Unclaimed Sweeps Advisory
Have you received an letter with a check from "Unclaimed Sweeps Advisory" telling you that "Unclaimed Sweeps Advisory has identified $____ in non-disbursed funds that are currently pending payment, but still remain unclaimed? It is a scam.

These are fraudulent notices of large cash entitlements or awards. These notices are typically mailed from Miami, Florida and Las Vegas, Nevada, and claim the recipients will receive or are owed a large amount of money. Many of the letters also contain a check made payable to the addressee. As these checks are realistic looking forgeries drawn on real bank account numbers (stolen), attempts to cash these checks could result in criminal charges. Attempting to cash an illegitimate check, even if made out to you, and even if you cannot tell that it is a counterfeit, and even if the bank thinks it is real, can cause a legal issue, including arrest, for you.

The senders of these notices each request an enrollment, processing or registration fee (usually twenty dollars) payable to the sender. Senders names include but are not limited to:

Allocated Disbursement Authority
Awardable Entitlement Pooling System
Awards Compliancy Commission
Bureau of Cash Acquisition
Cash Advisory Agency
Commission of Sweepstakes Compliancy
Continental Prize Commission
Department of Cash Reporting
Department of Investigative Research
Division of Currency Claims
Division of Monetary Resources
Elective Prize Resource Pool
Entry Entitlement Services
Financial Acquisition Agency
Monetary Entitlement Resources
Prize Research Intelligence Agency
Public Administrators Office
Unclaimed Sweeps Advisory
The majority of these letters also contain a fine print legal disclaimer which can be easily overlooked by the reader. Below is an example of the scam; this letter claims to be from the "Unclaimed Sweeps Advisory".

The Federal Trade Commission has charged some of the scammers in federal court, but it appears that others have continued the scam.

According to a complaint filed by the FTC, a fraudulent sweepstakes operation has violated federal law by sending personalized mail to millions of consumers nationwide, falsely telling them that they have won a substantial cash prize, often said to be worth more than $3 million, even though no prizes were awarded.

Urging consumers to respond immediately by sending $20 in order to receive their prize, some of the mailers described an as-yet uncollected but confirmed prize in the consumer's name; some mailers represented that unawarded money has been located and documented in their name; and other mailers mentioned Authorization to Disburse and referred to a guaranteed cash/prize amount in the seven-figure range, according to the complaint.

The complaint also alleges that the mailers sometimes contained small print that vaguely referred to a newsletter produced by the defendants, but not expressly informing the recipients that they had not won a prize. Instead of prizes, some consumers received information about how to enter sweepstakes, and some consumers received more mailers soliciting more money and suggesting that the consumers had won other prizes.

Defendants named in the complaint, all Nevada-based, are

National Prize Information Group Corp. (NPIGC),
d/b/a Las Vegas Actionable Awards Program,
Prize Search Express, Department of Unclaimed Awards,
United States Sweepstakes Advisory,
United States of America Patriotism Awards,
National Bureau of Prize Information,
Lapham Vargas and Cornell,
Director's Office, and
John Rincon, individually, and as an NPIGC officer.
The FTC charged them with violating Section 5 of the FTC Act, seeking a temporary restraining order, a preliminary injunction, and a freeze of their assets.

The action was brought with extensive assistance from the the Las Vegas office of the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada. The Commission vote to authorize staff to file the complaint was 5-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

Copies of the complaint are available from the FTC's Web site and also from the FTC's Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20580.

Require the winner to pay - U.S. federal law prohibits sweepstakes from charging you for anything, not "delivery", couriers, taxes, fees, handling charges, or anything else!

Here is a typical scam sweepstakes winning notification.

More information about this scam from a town in Connecticut.

Master list of sample sweepstakes scam emails

How to recognize a lottery scam

What to do if you think you have been the victim of a sweepstakes scam

How the lottery / sweepstakes scams work


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Actual scam email (One example - the scammers constantly change names, dates and addresses!):
Keywords: Payment pending memorandum

Re: pending cash disbursal awaiting claim and payment

Note the illegible signature with no printed name.









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The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace and to provide information to help consumers spot, stop, and avoid them. To file a complaint in English or Spanish (bilingual counselors are available to take complaints), or to get free information on any of 150 consumer topics, call toll-free, 1-877-FTC-HELP (1-877-382-4357), or use the complaint form. The FTC enters Internet, telemarketing, identity theft, and other fraud-related complaints into Consumer Sentinel, a secure, online database available to thousands of civil and criminal law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and abroad.
References
FTC

Names of Scam / Fake / Fraud Lottery
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies

***

When you respond to any ANY ANY piece of junkmail from scammers you are automatically passed around to other scammers and end up another person on what is called a "sucker list", go to Wikipedia and look up sucker list.

The best way to get off the "sucker list" is to:

1. HANG UP when they call, no matter how many times they call, HANG UP or DO NOT ANSWER. If you don't have caller ID, set up a ring code with friends and relatives (have them call and ring once then call right back), my mom did that for years before caller id and *69 were invented.

2. Put yourself on the DO NOT CALL list every month, and DON'T TALK to these people, if it sounds like a sales call or a get rich quick, hang up, there is no 'GOD SENT SWEEPSTAKES', its called 'SATAN'S SUCKER SWEEPSTAKES'!

3. Go to the post office website or visit your local post office and STOP delivery of JUNK MAIL!

4. If you want to play the lottery, go to the convenience store and buy a ticket.

BE SMART, NOT FOOLED

My 65 year old Dad got scam mail for my deceased grandmother, and sent off the tickets and entries for sweepstakes and lottery info, just to test the scammers... Now my Grandmother's name is on the sucker list, the house is still in her name, as is the telephone, even though she's been gone since 1981. These people aren't smart, they just have a tendency to go through the garbage and pick up info to fool people who have too much other things on their mind. Be AWARE.

Good Luck!!

I am updating my previous report regarding this Company. When filing this report I was asked if I would be willing to have a lawyer, media. I just now recieved a call. I can't take this anymore.l Its 8:51 a.m. Sunday morning 11/30/08. I need help!! I want these people to leave me alone. Per updating my report, I want to state again that My husband is a Disable American Veteran. And receive benefits for his disability of 100%.

I am disable. And recently got my benefits stopped because they said my husband makes to much money. And I have a bank account that is in a limbo, because Social Secuity Admistration stop payment on me, due to my husband income. They told me he makes to much money. Yet when I first filed they told me that the type of disability I receive, would not stop me for being with my husband. I am so hurt by these people. And its a honest and true statement that I was told that I could remain with my husband and still qualify.

Please do not take any part of my update to this company out of this update. I want people to know. "Please do not revise my update. I would like every single word that I am submitting to remain in this update. I can't work anymore. And I was receive. Its been a few minutes. And they have just called me again a few minutes ago, again.

I need to let others know. I can't stop crying, and my mine is all out of wack. I am not thinking straight. I can't even get out of bed. I have been used, and the reason being I was looking for work, because what my husband receive from his disability is not enough to handled all our bills. I'm disable, I can't work. But I had to seach jobs, to help make ends meet. This has made me severely sick. Because I thought I was more intelligent to get scammed.

And you know. What about me!! I needed the benifits that I was getting. I feel so stupid!! If I don't get a job, we are going to lose everything we have. And I need to find out how I can sue, to get my benefits restored. My benefits was taken, because I had filed a complaint against one of the staff in the Social Security Adminstration due to the fact that she did not take action on a man that befriended my mentally ill daughter. And took her to the Social Secuity Office and took my name off of her check and put his name as payee.

So, I filed a complaint against a Ms Ledesma for doing that without checking out this man, to see If he was truly what ever he said he was to them. So I reported her to the Department Of Justice. I need to file a complaint on them. so just like this scam. They have done unlawfull action's. They never even try to find out if this man was legitimate. Ms Ledesma stopped my benefits. Not due to my husbands income. She stopped it because I filed a complaint on her.

And she won.!! I can't work, that has been proven. Are I would not have been getting benefits in the first place. And this has taken a toll on me. And I have been mistreated so much, I give up!! And at this moment, I wish I could kill myself so that I can't ever be hurt again.

Over and over things like this has been happening. We got scammed out of our home. And nothing was done when I reported it. That was myself and my husbands dream home, and where we had feeled we would be there until death. This has been my life. I have been wronged so many times that I can't count them. What is the use to live!! After these people, this is it. I can't deal with it any longer. I just want to die.

I need help. They just took what I needed to live, and at least be able to pay bills and live comfortable. But I give up!! What is the use? How can they stop my benefits because I file a compliant on one of them. I need to explain. I was trying to go to school, and took a course in Business Office Operations. And they told me that, I was to unstable to be trying to work. I begged them that I would try harder, just give me another chance.

They wrote a letter for me to take to the Social Security Administraton, informing to them what they felt about me. And one of the things that I had begged him to let me stay, was I could not receive disability and live with my husband. They convinced me to just except that I'm not capable of doing any type of work, and the paper they gave me would make it where I could stay in the home with my husband.

I did what they asked me, and truly enough they confirmed me to be disable, and my benefits was sit to where I qualify. And my husband an I have been together and was never seperated. What can I do. I don't have the ability to file a law suit against a government entity. So, I know they have changed something in my file. They had to, because me getting the benefits proved in itself that it had been okayed.

These are the type of things that I have been going threw. Being denied or scammed. And I gave these people $20.00 and find it out to be just a scam. To some that money is nothing. But it is because I could have bougt food with that money. But I took a chance due to my belief in God, and thought a prayer had been answered. We never make it threw a whole month without running out of food. I needed that money. I could have taken that money, and bought food to make a decent meal.

I would like to go public with what has happened to me. And in your site you state would I be wiling to go public and be contacted by a lawyer or and the media. My answer to that is "YES" again. Because I already said yes on my first complaint. I need help! Please, have a lawyer contact me, and yes have the media come also. I deserve justice, being I am an American Citizen. This is my country. And I deserve justice. And so do my husband. He has a service connected disability, due to something that happened to him when he was in the military.

He put his life on the line for his country, and he deserve better than this for sacrificing his life for his country. If a lawyer can help me, please let me know, and contact me.

Thank You,
RUTH