U.S. Consulate Warns of Fraud in Visa Lottery

Posted by admin Headlines Saturday, February 5th, 2011

HE United States (U.S.) Mission to Nigeria has warned the members of the public to be aware of people informing them through scam e-mail messages or short messages (sms) of winning Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery to the U.S.

Speaking yesterday in Lagos, Charity Boyette, Vice Consul of the US Consulate General in Lagos said that over the last two weeks, she had received several fraudulent e-mail messages from fraudsters, that seem to originate from the United Kingdom (UK). They were congratulatory messages to illegitimate winners of US DV lottery.

“I was receiving similar e-mails and they were identical in contents and it was very clear that they were sending to a large number of people. They even backed them up with different packages, these include employment opportunities in the U.S. But that is not true,” she said.

According to her, once a person is given a DV visa lottery to the US, it is up to the person to get job or accommodation for he or herself in the U.S. “It is important to know that winners of the DV visa lottery are no longer notified by a letter. Receiving an email or an sms message is fraudulent. We don’t do that.”

She said that each year many Nigerians were issued immigrant visas through the US visa lottery programme, which entitled them to apply for entry visa into the U.S and once admitted established permanent residency.

“Unfortunately, we have noted recently a sham or fraudulent messages telling Nigerians that they have won the visa lottery.”

She disclosed that the fraudsters were asking people to pay fees through Western Union. “And that they must send the money to the UK because, as the e-mail said, it can be processed there because of the diplomatic relations. That is absolutely not true. People only pay for DV lottery at the time of interview inside the consulate to the consulate cashier,” she said.

She warned people not to be deceived because it was very easy for the embassy to locate the legitimate and illegitimate winners of the lottery.

“I do notify people that the U.S. government does not notify winners of DV lottery by e-mail or text messages. And you do not need to send any money. We are receiving 10 to 15 text messages a day from people who should have been victims,” she said

She said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was working with the Nigerian authorities to apprehend the culprits.

“For DV 2012 winners, they will be notified through our website in May. All they need to do is to go to our website and enter their confirmation number to find out whether or not they won. If they do win, they will receive information as to how to proceed. We will no longer be sending out any letter to individuals’ addresses as we were doing before. There will be no email or sms messages. It will be up to the applicants to check whether or not they have won US DV lottery or not,” she said.

-Guardian

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