LANCASHIRE is said to be 'awash' with scams as new technology gives fresh opportunities to fraudsters. This week a Blackburn con victim sent off £25,000 after being told he had won 505,000 euros in a Spanish lottery. Crime reporter IAN SINGLETON reports on the shocking extent of this type of fraud.

'CONGRATULATIONS. You're the UK winner! You've won £10,000'.

Tempting words appear capable of defeating the strongest suspicions.

But hindsight makes believing them seem astonishingly naive and foolish.

Take the case of a 25-year-old Blackburn man who sent £25,000 in 'processing fees' after being told by letter he had won £300,000 on a Spanish lottery - even though he had never bought a ticket.

The man told trading standards officers he felt 'really stupid' after falling for the explanation he had been allocated a ticket as part of European inclusion rules.

But to understand how intelligent people are caught out, we need to realise the elaborate lengths conmen and women go to in a bid to turn temptation into trust.

Jim Potts, chief trading standards officer for Lancashire, said: "I've seen gold-plated letterheads claiming to be from the Nigerian government office.

"I have one case where a man responded in writing to a scam and said 'I don't believe it'.

"They wrote back and said 'this is absolutely genuine, we will take you to the Bank of England to prove it'.

"They hired a chauffeur driven car to take him to London and hired a conman, dressed in a suit, to be inside the foyer of the Bank of England.

"He greeted the man and said 'let's go to a hotel to show you the financial contracts'. He went from being sceptical to thinking it could be the chance of a lifetime.

"He handed over thousands of pounds before the people went missing."

Although 60 per cent of scams are still thought to originate from a letter, modern technology has helped increase the number of people conned.

E-mail and text messages are the latest avenues to target people.

Mr Potts said: "We are awash with scams in Lancashire. The world is changing and consumers have to realise this.

"Modern communications and the postal system allow fraudsters to operate off shore through mail re-direction and give the appearance of being blue chip companies.

"And technology allows scamsters to get in touch with people more easily.

"Six billion items of junk mail are thought to be sent every year. It is postal warfare. If they send out 1,000 letters and for the cost of the stamps they get one reply sending a lot of cash - it is not a bad return.

"If people are vulnerable to try their luck once then it can be the first step on a ladder to ruin. If you respond you will then get increasingly targeted. Once they have you on the list, they swoop in."

Mr Potts said one grandfather from East Lancashire lost £8,000 after responding to one scam and being inundated with others.

However, not all cons demand thousands. Lancashire Trading Standards recently swooped on a postal depot in the west of the county after staff tipped them off about a suspicious batch of letters addressed to Brazil.

Officers found 3,000 letters each with a £20 cheque inside from people paying a 'processing fee' in anticipation of a lottery win.

Had the batch not been discovered, it would have been a £60,000 profit for the fraudsters.

Businesses are also targeted. Last month trading standards officers raided a postal depot on the Fylde Coast after staff reported receiving 200,000 letters to be re-directed to a non-EU country.

They found a £100 cheque in each envelope from bosses who believed they were paying a registration fee for the Data Protection Act.

Mr Potts added: "People think if something comes through the Royal Mail it must be genuine.

"People think it is almost like winning the lottery. They feel great as they have been picked.

"But if it is too good to be true then it probably is. There is no such thing as a free lunch and especially not cash prizes of £30,000 in competitions you haven't entered. People should not respond."

Mr Potts believes a lot also needs to done to tighten up consumer laws.

He added: "We would like postal services more involved to stop junk mail being sent. We'd also like a strengthening of the law to clamp down on these rogue companies, especially the premium-rate lines.

"And there needs to be education for youngsters, especially as they are being enticed in premium rate text messaging services.

"The scams are very hard crimes to detect. Most people are amazed these schemes can operate beyond the law but we don't have the mechanisms to stop them."