Fake Lottery Winner Disappears

Fergus Frater told everyone he had won the Euro lottery jackpot. His son was so pleased, believing that his dad would cut him in on a share of the winnings, that he quit his job. Frater's sister also looked forward to getting some of the money. But then the REAL winner of the lottery stepped forward with the winning ticket, and Fergus promptly did a runner, skipping town to avoid the wrath of his relatives.

Pretending to win the lottery is, of course, not a new hoax. Our own Cranky Media Guy has done it before. But what I find odd is that Fergus made his own family the primary victims of the hoax. His son said:
"I could kill him ... but he's gone to ground and I've no idea where he is. He's never done anything like this before. We just can't work out what possessed him but he was telling everybody and the whole town thought he'd won. When I find him, we'll have words but at the end of the day he's my dad."
Fergus's friends are explaining it as a "prank that went too far."

Business/Finance

Posted on Mon Aug 20, 2007



Comments

Yup, I was the "winner" of America's biggest-ever lottery in February of '06. I flew to Nebraska to pull that one off. My friend Alan Abel put the hoax together and it paid for by Joe Vitale, who writes motivational books.

At one point, I was facing three TV cameras, one radio microphone and a newspaper guy taking notes on his pad (we were in a Denny's type place called the Village Inn in Lincoln).

The poor guy playing my son, Alan's daughter's boyfriend Jeff, looked terrified by all the press. I almost laughed at the look on his face.

Nothing like a good old-fashioned lottery hoax, although why Fergus Frater did it to his family I have no idea.
Posted by Cranky Media Guy  on  Mon Aug 20, 2007  at  07:26 PM
Did it not occur to him, for one single second, that sooner or later he'd get found out?
Posted by Nona  on  Tue Aug 21, 2007  at  06:34 AM
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