A Nova Scotia man has paid a very high price for his generosity.
Allen and Violet Large made headlines around the world after they gave away all of their $11.2-million lottery winnings.
“We didn’t need it,” he says.
Violet Large has since passed away, but even before her death scam artists set out to take advantage of the Truro couple’s good deed.
They emailed unknowing victims, claiming to be the Larges and offering money in exchange for banking information.
More than two years have passed since the couple won the lottery and scam emails are still making their way into people’s inboxes.
Allen Large says the whole situation makes him furious.
“Madder than hell, because people from all over the world…I had phone calls from Russia, Ukraine, Japan, China, Germany.”
A woman in Port Alberni, B.C. is the latest target. She received an email today.
“It's just a shame that people are doing things like this,” says Christine Campbell. “It's not right at all.”
Large says he began hearing about the scam within six months of winning the lottery, but he’s surprised to hear people are still receiving the emails.
“That is something we can’t do anything about, nobody can do anything about,” he says.
He went to the RCMP about the scam, but they told him there is little they can do.
“It’s able to be traced back to a certain IP address. These can be traced back to London and Africa.” says Colchester RCMP Cpl. Addie MacCallum. “From there it becomes very difficult for us to enforce those because they’re in other countries.”
RCMP say email scams are very common; RCMP in Colchester have received 30 complaints in the last month alone.
Large says he is worried the scam will tarnish his late wife’s memory.
“People say, well, how come it bothers you? Well, why wouldn’t it? After being married for 47 years why wouldn’t it?”
He says he will continue to honour her memory by buying lottery tickets every week. If he ever wins again, he plans to give all the winnings away a second time.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell
