European Lottery Guild - Scam?

corbouk

Allow me to share my experience with you, so that maybe you can all decide once and for all that the European Lottery Guild is a scam, it targets and grooms the elderly, and you should not touch it in a million years.

I have an elderly relative, she's 98. She was taken ill and admitted to hospital, doctors are comforting her, there is little they can do to help her.

In taking care of her and making final arrangements she granted us access to her most recent bank statements, and it was then we found out about the European Lottery Guild for the first time. They had taken £4000 out of her account in the past 2 months alone.

We then received a call from social services. Someone from the ELG had obviously called her flat to try and get more money out of her and the warden had told her she was in hospital. The ELG employee had then phoned every hospital in the county until she found her, and attempted to speak to her directly, on her death bed.

Needless to say the authorities are now involved in sorting this matter as fraud and extortion.

Stay away from the European Lottery Guild.

Stay away from the European Lottery Guild.

Stay away from the European Lottery Guild.

Their mission is to groom the elderly and vulnerable, and take as much money as possible.

razraz

European lottery guild is a very suspicious company ,

1- they push you for card payment over the phone in different ways
2- this company is not regulated at all
3- they are out of reach; there is no company address

*** 4- I did search their address on Google map, there is nothing except a mail box somewhere in Netherlands.***

fedupwithtwats

I received info from the ELG after replying to an advert either online or in a newspaper (I cant remember which), however something doesn't seem quite right so I googled ELG and ended up on this forum and from various posts can't decide if they are genuine or not.
HOWEVER, when I filled in my application they asked for a date of birth which I never give anyone so as usual I gave a false one which in this case make me about 150 years old.........they still sent me the info. !!
There is something in their small print not quite right also as they state in one part no deductions are made but in another part the winner is liable for tax in the country of the win. Mmmmmmmmmmm, methinks I'll give it a miss.

O.K. so they got my name and address but thats all.

But how do they know that's genuine?

P.S. If anyone is ever worried about credit card or debit card payments being taken from your account do what I do. I phone the bank or credit card company and tell them I've lost the card and they put an immediate stop on it so no recurring payments can be made. They send you a new card which has a new number on but is still linked to your account so your normal direct debits can still be paid such as rent or mortgage etc, etc. I must be clumsy as I lose mine at least once a year. Its a way of playing safe if your not sure about something you signed up for or you want to stop a regular payment on your credit card.

sithemadmonkey

fedupwithtwats wrote: »

P.S. If anyone is ever worried about credit card or debit card payments being taken from your account do what I do. I phone the bank or credit card company and tell them I've lost the card and they put an immediate stop on it so no recurring payments can be made. They send you a new card which has a new number on but is still linked to your account so your normal direct debits can still be paid such as rent or mortgage etc, etc. I must be clumsy as I lose mine at least once a year. Its a way of playing safe if your not sure about something you signed up for or you want to stop a regular payment on your credit card.

...or you just ask the bank to stop the continuous payment authority (CPA) that has been set up - saves you being without a card for days, and changing over any CPAs that you actually want to have on your account (not to mention lying to your bank and causing them unnecessary work, putting up the cost for the rest of us).

Mr_Mink

DebiL wrote: »

Have you noticed that it 'looks' like a BBC website but the formatting of the page is different - this is also true of the linked North Devon gazette page - I am not convinced by these

Not only that, check out the URL. This story is on http:// news.bbc .co. uk/. Every other single story on the REAL BBC site has the URL http:// www. bbc.co. uk/news

Always check the URL

It's very clever because all of the links on their page will send you to the real BBC one, but you will never ever be able to reach that page via a link on the real BBC website.

sithemadmonkey

It's a genuine article. The url and formatting differences are because the story is from 2005, and that's how BBC news pages looked back then (BBC news has been my browser's homepage for longer than I care to remember, and I remember when it looked like that).

Having said that, if the last newsworthy win was back in 2005 then what does it say to your chances of winning? Still wouldn't touch them with a barge pole...

sourcrates

Learning_Curve wrote: »

Hi everyone,

I sent off for info for this Irish Lottery thing, and it has now arrived. It asks for money for the tickets which includes a processing fee. I was firstly a bit confused as it doesn't ask you to enter your numbers or tell you your numbers if they are pre-allocated. From what I have been able to ascertain by Googling, is that they are a ticket agent who put you into a syndicate, so that you can get entries into the Irish, German and Spanish lotteries (normally apparently you need to live in the country to enter). So this explains why you don't pick your own numbers. As they have offices all over this is how they get round non-residents being able to enter. I have a cheque written and in the envelope but something is making me hang back from posting it.

I've Googled and found that this company's name has come up in the same sentence as the word scam. However, apparently their name has been used fraudulently by other scam artists and they insist they are genuine. Their website (europeanlotteryguild.com) even has pages advising on how to avoid scams. The return address for the entry is in Liverpool, but if it's the same company, I found out via Googling that they are owned by a Canadian man who has dealings with criminal activities of all sorts and whose business partner was found dead, shot in the head. I just don't know whether other rip-off artists are using their name and tarnishing the name of a genuine company.

Other sites claim countless calls from this company (whether it's them or a clone scam) and having too much money deducted from their accounts after sending debit card details etc.

Their paperwork looks professional and genuine. But I'm just not sure. Has anyone had dealings with them?

Thanks.:undecided

Dude GET REAL !!!! this stinks to high heaven, how many times do you here stories of people been scammed in this way !!!!
WALK AWAY NOW !!!

carolconfused

We've recently discovered that my father, who is in his 70s, has been spending thousands of pounds buying tickets from ELG. It has come as complete a shock as it is totally out of character and to our knowledge he's never so much as gambled a penny at an arcade previously. We have been trying to convince him that even if they are legit (which we have no sure way of ascertaining) the chances of winning are remote to say the least. He seems to receive regular calls from their call centre in Vancouver (tho registered address in Netherlands..PO Box surprise surprise) and we have discovered they have sent him bunches of flowers in the past. It makes my skin crawl. Even if they are legit they must be making a mint by charging him fees and or commission on each ticket...or how else would they make their money. We are worried that when we try to reason with him and convince him not to buy anymore tickets we are fighting against a whole army of hard sell call centre agents who it appears call it an 'investment' and convince him that next time could be 'the one'. I'm at my wits end so if anyone has anymore info or advice I'd be very grateful.

Conrad_Pall

It's possible to win money, but you should be very careful not to meet with real scammers

I found some information, it's very useful australian-lotto-results.com/powerball-australia-info

clint_S

The T&C for a lot of these lotteries are very clear.


- You must be resident of the country, or of an approved country.
- You must be in that country when purchasing the tickets.


Both of these mean you never have any rights to any of the winnings, if a ticket is even purchased. That's even before we get into the syndicate rules which would remove any rights you had if you were even in an approved country. If it's not just a 419 scam then you're simply paying for someone else to play the lotteries with zero chance of even seeing any money.