Dear Ann Landers,
Last August, I received a telephone call from a woman who said I had won a foreign lottery. She asked if I remembered entering, and I said, "No. I have bought so many lottery tickets that I can't recall all the different ones." She then informed me there had been a drawing and my name had shown up in the list of 200 semi-finalists. A second drawing put my name as one of five finalists. She said the directors of the lottery decided that $450 million was too much to give to just one person, so it was going to be divided among all five of the finalists. Applying simple arithmetic, it comes out to $90 million for each of us. All that was required was for me to send $10, which I promptly did. It has been three months, and so far, I have received absolutely nothing. I phoned the local Better Business Bureau and was told, "You will never get any money from them. Why should they pay you? They already have YOUR money." Any comments? -- Rockford, Ill.

Dear Rockford,
Barnum was right.