Ohio resident learns of scam on Web site

Published 12:29 am Monday, May 7, 2007

By By Adrienne McKenzie
The Atmore Advance reported on a check scam that came by mail to Atmore resident Kathy Byrd Sunday and following the article, a reporter at the Advance received a phone call from Amanda Dehaven, a 28-year-old living in Ohio who had been a target of the same scam.
Byrd was sent a check in the mail for $2,975 from Starluck Casino out of Canada. The letter with the check stated she was a winner of $98,000, out of a supposed total cash prize draw of $588,000 divided among six winners.
Dehaven said she also received the $2,975 check from Starluck Casino and a letter accompanying it. After receiving the scam in the mail she decided to do a little research.
"I went to the library in the community that I live in to do a search," Dehaven said. "That's when I came across your article. I just found the article online and thought 'Hello, this just happened to me.' I thought I was the only one, but Alabama is thousands of miles away."
Dehaven said the scam was exactly like the one Byrd had been sent and she took it to her local sheriff's department.
"The check was a U.S. Fund check," Dehaven said. "I called the number on the letter and they told me to deposit it and that they'd call me within 24 hours to do a wire transfer. When I tried to cash it, the bank manager said it was a scam. I then went and turned it into the sheriff's department and they said they would look into it."
Whenever Dehaven read the Advance's article about the check scam, she was happy to know she was not the only person targeted by the casino.
"I thought, 'Yes! I'm not the only person who has been a victim of this," Dehaven said.

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