Park Forest, IL—(ENEWSPF)— One resident nearly lost a lot of money last week to a scam. When he discovered his bank account was nine million dollars in the red, he went to see police.
Police were summoned to the Park Forest Police Department on October 11 to investigate a report of fraud. A resident reported receiving a letter from Capital & Assets Inc. from Ontario, Canada, stating that he was the winner of a sweepstakes. The letter stated that he was entitled to the sum of $170,000 US dollars. Capital & Assets mailed the victim a check for $4375.30 and advised him to deposit the check into his bank account and then mail $2800 to a Betty Stevens in Orlando, Florida, according to the report. Capital stated that the $2800 would pay for the applicable surcharge/government tax that is due on his winnings.
The victim stated that he did deposit the check into his account, but did not mail the $2800. He checked his bank account on October 11 and discovered that his checking account had a negative balance of $9,000,000.00. The victim related that he did not lose money from his account, and that the bank would close his account.
When police contacted Capital & Assets and spoke to a supervisor, the supervisor refused to give any information regarding the claim. The supervisor provided police with a phone number to their legal department, but the phone number came back as the wrong number, according to the report.
