There's no such thing as a Free Lunch

“Free cheese is only in a mousetrap” − I guess this Russian saying approximately corresponds with the above English one with a precise concretization of what kind of “lunch” and what its consequences were. It means that people in Ukraine do not actually believe in e-mail and internet congratulation letters related to them winning a lottery. Actually, my mail-service would mark something like this as a spam and suggest that it be deleted.

There are some genuine opportunities to squander your money though. For example, if you receive a letter that says you’ve won some amount of money (such as $10,000), and the only thing you’ve got to do to get it delivered is to send a small sum ($20) to the company’s fund. Of course you’ll never get your “winnings”.

You might as well play the lottery or gamble, but I’ve never seen a happy victor of those, except in one case. There was a guy who put some money on the date of my birthday and won (at 35-1 odds) in American Roulette (yes, you can play this in Ukraine!). But I didn’t actually participate. I was an astonished witness only, so I can say that I don’t have any definite experience in the lottery/gambling field and have never taken the possibility of winning seriously.

On the contrary, John seems to be well informed about Green Card Lottery scams and winners as if he had followed this information for a long time. No wonder he came to Ukraine in 2010 when as he said there were a lot of winners: he had to check what made our people win, and was trying to catch some splash of greatness staying here with the lucky men and women. Had his arrival anything to do with marriage agencies and the disbelief in them, who knows? We can only wonder.

Posted by Helen

Green in Judgement

        This post is being provided as a public service. From time to time some of my Ukrainian friends have asked me to look at an item that was sent to them about the U.S. Green Card lottery, (this is also known as the United States Permanent Resident Card or Diversity Visa). They usually receive an e-mail (that comes from an address ending in .usa) saying that they have won the lottery and that they should send a fee by Western Union to pay for the visa processing.  Official U.S. government websites end in .gov. If you receive something that ends in .usa then it is not from the U.S. government. I have noticed that the e-mail is not random spam because it does contain personal information such as name, phone number and place of birth I’m guessing that this e-mail was the result of entering the green card lottery on a site other than an official U.S. government website. It is important that you enter the Green Card Lottery on the actual U.S. State Department website. You do not have to pay to enter the lottery and you can get the forms for free The e-mail promises health insurance for 1 year, 3 months free rent in any city of your choice and a guaranteed job in your field. Of course to make this happen you must send $880 to an US Embassy Agent named Andrew Pickering in London, United Kingdom. Obviously, someone is making money off of naïve Ukrainians that fall for these scams. Perhaps it is being done by lonely men seeking revenge for money lost to Ukrainian marriage agencies?

        Once you enter the lottery you should be aware that the U.S. government does not notify the winners by e-mail. In the past, the Kentucky Consular Center gave the results by letter but that will change in the near future. The results from the next lottery (DV-2012) will only be available online (http://www.dvlottery.state.gov/). It is too late to enter this lottery because it closed in early November of 2010. If you do win the lottery then there are additional steps that you must take including getting a medical exam and being interviewed by a consular officer. It should be noted that in 2010 and 2011 Ukraine had the most winners of the lottery among all of the European countries and was near the top between all nations. 

        Let’s review the red flags about the lottery that might uncover a scam….

• The lottery is run once a year, normally for about 30 days starting in October.

• You must enter thru the official US State Department website which is: http://www.state.gov/

• Results are not sent by e-mail.

• Any websites or e-mails that do not end in .gov are imposters.

Go here: http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1322.html

To read more information about the (Diversity Visa (DV) Lottery Program

Posted by John