A NEW warning has been issued to people in York and North Yorkshire to beware of so-called "lottery fraud".

Officers at the North Yorkshire Police fraud squad have noticed a "sizeable increase" in the number of reports received from members of the public about this type of fraud and "similar scams".

They add that it is quite alarming that some people are still falling for the scams, despite the publicity given to them by the police and other agencies.

Detective Sergeant Ian lllingworth said: "The wave of reports comes from a variety of apparently quite different scams, many of which offer the unsuspecting victim a very large amount of money, but sometimes offer valuable items, purportedly as a result of winning a competition, which invariably they will not have actually entered, or that they have inherited from a relation they never knew existed."

He said the fraudster then wanted the victim to send money, cheques or make bank transfers, often for a small sum, to cover the bureaucratic processes required before they can receive their prize.

Other scams include unsolicited scratch cards which require the vicitm to call a premium rate phone number to find out if they have won, which can cost a lot of money.

"Of course no prize is received and the money has gone," said Det Sgt Illingworth.

"Most, but not all, of these scams appear to originate abroad, commonly in Canada, Holland, Belgium, Australia and Africa, making it harder to trace the offenders or recover the money. Some fraudsters are even ringing the victim claiming to be a police officer or other reputable professional and verifying the scheme.

"Once the victim has replied and shown themselves to be gullible they are frequently targeted by the fraudsters with other scams, often leading to large sums of money being lost, sometimes many thousands of pounds.

Among the advice offered by the fraud squad is not to reply to mailings if you have not entered a competition or lottery, do not pay money for the prize or inheritance to be sent to you, do not give out bank details, check identities, and if something seems too good to be true it probably is.

Updated: 09:38 Thursday, January 23, 2003