SWINDLERS never sleep. They are too busy thinking up new ways of ripping off gullible consumers

If you have not entered any competition or bought a lottery ticket you should not expect a windfall of money from any lottery anywhere in the world. And surely, if you win something you should not pay anything to redeem your prize.

Linda Mbuyisa of Piet Retief in Mpumalanga was a victim of a counterfeit cheque scam, in the guise of the UK-African International Lottery Award.

He responded to a text message allegedly sent by UK-Africa International early this month.

They were congratulating him on winning $500,000 (about R3,5 million), but he ended up with a hole in his pocket.

He was swindled out of R2,230 and he now wants to warn consumers not to fall victim in the same way he did.

"I found out after parting with my money that their promise of wealth was a lie," he said.

Mbuyisa, a father of two, said he had not entered any competition but had responded thinking his forefathers had remembered him. He said he thought they were real.

Their agent, only known as Dr Paul, asked for his banking details, promising to deposit the money the following day.

"He promised to call at 9:30am but instead sent another message saying I must buy MTN airtime worth R180 and send the voucher numbers to him, which I did."

Mbuyisa said another SMS landed asking him to deposit an insurance fee of R2,050, which he paid though the account holder was not Paul.

"I went to Pick n Pay and deposited the money into the money market account of AV Nxumalo," Mbuyisa said.

Paul later asked for Mbuyisa's fax number and sent him a certificate confirming he had won $500,000.

No money was deposited but he was asked to deposit a further R900 for tax clearance into a Gall Level Trading account at Standard Bank.

"I don't want their prize anymore. I want them to refund my money," Mbuyisa said.

He said he had called the HSBC Bank, which was suppose to deposit his prize - without luck .

"I should just have bought clothes for my children," he said.