Avalance of scam letters

A DELUGE of junk mail from all over the world could easily have led a Hailsham woman to believe that she s one of the luckiest people alive.

But Sheila Dean, of Deanland Wood Park, has received so many circular letters offering large cash prizes in exchange for money that she thinks the whole affair has taken a rather sinister turn.

Such letters have come from places as far afield as Australia and Canada.

In one letter delivered to Sheila on Wednesday last week, a psychic named 'Barbara living in Amsterdam told her that 'someone who hates you and wishes you harm is plotting against you .

The letter went on to explain that the only chance Sheila had to save her happiness and win up to 175,000 on the lottery into the bargain was to send 7 to 'Barbara so that she could 'intervene and shield you against this sworn enemy .

'Quite frankly, I was horrified by the letter s contents, said Sheila. 'I don t even do the lottery, so to win would, in itself, be a miracle. If someone felt about me the way 'Barbara says they do, I think I would be in a better position to know than some disembodied stranger in another country!

'My worry is that someone who does the lottery and is vulnerable could be badly affected by being informed that out there is someone who hates them and wishes them harm.

At the bottom of the letter, printed in tiny writing, a disclaimer reads: 'To help you better and in depth, Barbara cannot take your call. It would break her concentration and power of communication. Thank you.

Another piece of junk mail told Sheila, calling her by name, that she had won 100,000 on the Australian lottery, but that her prize could not be processed without a 27 administration charge.

Other letters have promised enormous cash prizes, one informing her that she had won 13 million.

Over the past seven or eight weeks, Sheila reckons she has had 40 to 50 of these cash-scamming circulars drop through her letterbox. They have come from Britain, Canada, Australia, The Netherlands and Argentina, all addressed personally to her.

'Obviously my name is on a list for 'lucky recipients, she said. 'The least these prize letters requested for processing my win was 10, the most was 69!

'I wonder if anything can be done to combat this kind of thing, because it needs to be stopped before some harm is really done.