Is Heritage Metro Capital a legitimate bank?

Question

Is Heritage Metro Capital a legitimate bank? I won the lottery on a site called Lottoleap. (I did buy a ticket to participate in the Lottery). But now it feels like a scam. They sent me a debit card but are withholding my money unless I pay them $55,000.

Answer 1

Absolutely a scam. It claims to be a FDIC Equal Housing Lender. Not only is that not a real term, but a search with the FDIC reveals that there is no registered bank with that name. Its web site isn't even consistent about what the organization's name is. It refers to itself in several cases as the Royal National Bank.

Also, banks are only allowed to withhold your money under very limited circumstances, such as suspicious activity or legal requests. Refusing to pay them $55,000 in order to have access to funds that are already (supposedly) yours is not one of those circumstances.

I say "supposedly" yours because there is no money. This is a classic advance-fee scam. If you pay them the $55,000, they'll either keep inventing new fees you need to pay before you can access the money or simply disappear with whatever money you gave them.

If they really needed to withhold $55,000 for some reason, they would simply deduct that from the winnings and give you the rest of it. There's no reason that you need to send them more money.

Also, this is perhaps a more minor point, but why did they put the (supposed) winnings in a new account in that bank? Why not just issue the payment to an existing bank account?