First, the moral of the story: Don't ever send money to claim a "free" prize.

T.O. police want residents to beware of a reverse lottery scam that's left one senior citizen minus $5,000 in her bank account.

The scam begins with a legitimate-looking letter in the mail that says the recipient has won the Publisher's Clearing House $1-million Sweepstakes. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, however, and instead of receiving money, the "winner" is asked to send money.

In this particular case, the woman mailed $5,000 to Canada via Money Gram service after she got a "sweepstakes check" in the mail with instructions on how to cash it. The check turned out to be fraudulent, but, the money she sent to Canada was genuine. It was supposed to cover insurance for the big prize she was promised.

To add more even more pain, she gathered her family at her house on April 21 to wait for PCH officials to come, as the letter promised.

They, of course, never came. "There is no such thing as paying fees or taxes up front to claim a prize," said Detective Eric Buschow.

Any letter asking for money up front for a sweepstakes or lottery should be immediately put in the shredder, he said. Fraudulent letters can also be turned in to the Federal Trade Commission or to a postal inspector. For more information, go to www.ftc.gov or www.secretservice.gov.

Sending money to an international address is another tipoff that something is wrong.

This isn't the first time Buschow has seen seniors in the Conejo taken advantage of by unscrupulous thieves.

"I've met people who have mailed off their life savings. It's very tragic," he said.

The scammers are very good at it and they seem very nice, he said.