2 December 2007 - An 83-year-old woman who couldn't afford to pay the heating bill after falling victim to junk mail scams has died of pneumonia.
According to the Sunday Mirror, the woman from Derby was £80,000 in debt and had been sent around 30,000 junk mail letters since she responded to a letter telling her that she had won a foreign lottery ten years ago.
Every week the woman sent off her pension to fraudsters. She spent all her savings and took out loans to respond to threats which said she would lose her home if she didn't pay up. When the pensioner finally confided in her family, it was too late. Her daughter said: "Mum broke down and phoned me one night when it had got so bad she didn't know what to do. I had my suspicions something was wrong for a while, but she kept the details a secret from me until it had gone too far.
"At the end she had people hammering on the door for money. It's appalling to think she suffered in silence while these fraudsters took every last penny from her."
Research from the Office of Fair Trading suggests that 3.2 million people fall victim to junk mail fraud a year, including 380,000 people who are victims of 'sweepstake' scams where letters claim they have won a lottery.
Gordon Lishman, director of Age Concern, said: "The fraudsters who run these mailings will stop at nothing to con people out of their hard-earned cash. We would urge older people to be on their guard."
A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We are working closely with the police to stop any criminal activity. The trouble is that too often these companies change their names and carry on sending out the scams through another service provider."