A YORK pensioner today backed a national campaign warning people to be on their guard against a Canadian lottery scam.

Dorothy Savage - who revealed in the Evening Press last year how she had been targeted by the scam - said the conmen had started sending letters to her again in the past month.

"I have received half-a-dozen letters, but I have just torn them up," said Mrs Savage, who lives off Beckfield Lane, Acomb. "I don't even open them in case I get tempted. I just dump them."

The Office of Fair Trading has launched an awareness campaign about the con, under which pensioners are duped into believing they have won a fortune before being conned out of thousands of pounds.

It says it has received more than 300 complaints since August about the deception, which has netted crooks more than £5 billion worldwide since it first appeared eight years ago.

Mike Haley, from international enforcement at the OFT, said: "A raid on a call centre in Canada found a list with the names of 300 householders in the UK along with their credit card numbers and how much they spent. The list was one of six found."

The OFT says it is working with the authorities in Canada, where more than 50 people have already been arrested.

Len Swift, trading standards officer for North Yorkshire County Council, said the deception begins when staff from Canadian call centres, or "boiler rooms", phone their victims and congratulate them on a jackpot win. They then ask them to hand over as much as £67,000 in tax and administration, to release their prize.

Mr Swift said: "We have had reports of people losing thousands of pounds to these scams, and not all of the targets have been pensioners.

"If anybody receives similar phone calls they should never hand over any money, and should inform us immediately."

Mrs Savage told last year how she had been asked to pay £749 in order to receive a £5,000 cheque after "winning" the Canadian lottery.

She said she had earlier sent off a cheque for £5 along with a registration form, after receiving a letter saying she had won £10,000 in a grand prize draw.

She then received a phone call, allegedly from Canada, telling her she had won £5,000 and would get another £5,000 per month for the rest of the year. But she just needed to pay a £749 authorisation fee to begin collecting her winnings. She refused to pay up.

Updated: 10:47 Wednesday, December 03, 2003