Radio Features

Shropshire Trading Standards staff are warning people not to respond to letters telling them they have won a prize in a draw or lottery. They are asked to send money to claim their winnings which never arrive.

Liz Toon from Shropshire Trading Standards said they had recently been asked to go through some mail found at the home of an elderly man who had died.

The letters were sent from the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Canada and the USA. They are still arriving on a daily basis at the man's solicitors.

It is believed he had responded to some of the letters and was conned out of thousands of pounds.

Ms Toon said what was more worrying was that lists of the names of people who did respond to the scams were given to other people: "It's quite frightening that if you respond to them, your name gets passed around."

She said officers would be going through the bags of letters to find out where they had come from: "It's tantamount to the distraction burglar standing on your doorstep, but they come through the door and people are actually taken in and don't realise quite what's behind this."

Put them in the bin

She's advising anyone who receives one of these letters to put it straight in the bin.

Not all the fraudsters get away with it. Nearly 22,000 victims are having their cash returned after officers cracked a mass marketing scam which could have netted £35m for overseas-based criminals.

The government's Serious Organised Crime Agency intercepted payments made to international lottery scams and bogus offers during a raid on an address in Somerset.