Q: Ridges Financial Services Ltd.
A: You mean the one that's located on Castle Ave. in Chicago IL? Somebody asked a similar question before (link posted in the source), and nobody confirmed its existence. If this is regarding a lottery claim notification, then I believe you're being frauded. My mother received such a notice, and within 30 minutes, I've deduced that everything about this letter is fake. The "All-State Lotto Corp" which was the lottery that was supposedly entered into by my mother does not exist. It does not turn up in a Google search, nor is it registered with the Better Business Bureau. The letter that we received listed an email contact under the domain name "mail.com" which is a free email service. If this was a reputable company dealing with funds in the 6 figure realm, then they would surely have their own domain name, or at least be google-able. This Ridges Financial company is listed in the Chicago Better Business Bureau. There are no negative reports on this company on their file page, but the file on it (linked in the sources) was just opened this month. Also, according to an answer in the previous yahoo quesion, there is no Castle Ave in Chicago. A quick visit to http://maps.google.com verifies this. Two phone numbers are listed, but it's not difficult to obtain phone numbers and have people man them with fraudulent information. I could go a step further and call Chicago's chamber of commerce to verify that this company is registered with them, but with what I see, I can conclude that this is indeed a fraud. Besides, my mom has never been to Chicago, much less Illinois, and only occasionally plays the California Lottery. Hope this helps you. Here are more sites on fraud education: http://www.fraudaid.com/ http://www.scamvictimsunited.com/index.htm