“You can’t win if you don’t play” may be true for most cases, but what if that means you have to pay, and not buy lottery tickets, to win? Well, police are warning residents in the Palm Beach area to be cautious as is it known that several of them have by scammers in foreign countries with the promise of wealth in lottery winnings for games of chance that the victims have never even played.

That is why the Palm Beach police recently issued this advisory about the con game that won’t go away. Mega lottery

Police say that the way it usually works is that lottery thieves send out e-mails, faxes or letters to potential victims announcing they have won a foreign lottery. After this, according to police, they direct their victims to give out personal banking information and pay some fees to collect their winnings.

“Once they get money out of you, they’ll be relentless to get more money out of you,” said Capt. Curtis Krauel, who is the department’s identity theft expert. “They try to hook you in, and then they shake you to see what else falls out of your pockets,” he said. Lottery numbers

According to Krauel, this sometimes can escalate from alleged “initial fees” to even having victims providing their bank account information and even a victim’s Social Security number.

“You don’t get the money back and you can open yourself up to identity theft where new accounts are opened in your name,” he said. “They become you.”

Scammers are playing a numbers game, Krauel said, because what they do is they contact as many potential victims as possible.

“They may cast out a line to 100. They only need one victim,” he said,

The problem is, that the exact number of victims in Palm Beach is unknown because cases often go unreported, police said.

“We get our share,” said Public Safety Director Kirk Blouin. “It’s not common, but occasionally we get reports.

Right now, losses can add up to hundreds, thousands or millions of dollars, police said.

Krauel said one 2011 case amounted to a $250,000 loss of the victim’s money. But, in most of the cases, residents may be too embarrassed to report they fell for such a scheme, he said.

Yet police continue to encourage victims, whether they have sent money or not, to report it and then tell the lottery thieves that the police have been notified.

“Then they back off,” Krauel said.

Another issue here is that this type of crime is difficult to investigate and track, police said. In extreme cases, police may turn to the FBI, the U.S. Postal Service or other agencies for assistance.

Years ago, victims were targeted in person and asked to put up cash to collect prize or lottery money but, now this has changed. And the reason behind robbing people in what seems to be a friendly encounter but, also the willingness of those victims who get drawn by the promise of an instant payoff are basic, police said.

“It’s human nature,” Blouin. said. “It’s called greed. Some people are being naive and then it involves greed.”

Krauel advised residents to use common sense over greed because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Finally, the police advise anyone who has been contacted about a foreign lottery to call the department at 838-5454.