Scammers try to capitalize on Sault teen’s $48M win

A record lottery win in the Sault – an 18-year-old student won $48 million -- is being used to target social media users.

The latest scam sees fake accounts trying to engage people into contacting them to receive giveaways.

Accounts posing as the Sault's Juliette Lamour have been promising ‘giveaways’ to people that contact them over email.

“It’s certainly difficult and very unfortunate that somebody’s been put in a position where their identity is being used to try and scam other people,” said Sgt. Mike Rogers of the Sault Police’s technological crime unit.

Scammers used the comment sections on a number of CTV northern Ontario Facebook pages to promote the fake giveaways.

CTV News digital content specialist Chelsea Papineau said there are a few ways to detect fraudulent posts.

“There are some things that you can look for,” she said.

“When was it created, when was their first post.”

These types of scams are not new, and police warn the public that if it seems too good to be true, it likely is.

“A lot of times what these individuals are looking for is your personal private information, bank account information, credit card numbers, stuff like that,” Rogers said.

“And those are things you should definitely never give out.”

Finding and charging the people behind these scams is usually a tall task. Police said they are often outside of Canada so investigators need to go through multiple other agencies.

Instead, quick warnings to the public are the best way to prevent fraud.

“We go the initial route -- shut down and stop that communication -- and force them to have to work a little harder for it next time,” Rogers said.

“We do moderate the comments, but there is so much traffic that we can’t always get to it right away,” Papineau said.

“So what I’d love the audience to know is that if they do see something, say something.”