Most of us will have seen them before, the scam emails that are supposedly from one or other of the lottery operators that are located all over the world. These messages claim that we have won a lot of money. Usually they mimic the details, logo and name of a legitimate lottery operator, like those who sell UK lottery tickets to buyers in foreign countries. Actually most of these senders are not linked in any way to the legal operators of lotteries. Mostly these mails come from people who operate a scam also known as advance fee fraud. Their aim is not to pay you winnings, even though that’s what they claim, but rather to get money from you.
So how does one avoid falling victim to these ruthless crooks and make sure that a notification of winnings is legitimate? There are a few ways to recognize a lottery scam and reduce your risk of being conned out of your hard earned money.
One important fact to bear in mind is that you cannot be a winner in a competition that you didn’t even enter. This may sound obvious but a lot people are still fooled like this. Be on your guard if you are suddenly sent an email telling you that you are the lottery winner a of a lot of cash yet you never even bought a ticket in a foreign lottery.
The secrecy they ask you to observe is another tell-tale sign of this type of scam. They reason they give for this is that there has been a mix up with some names and addresses. Terms like email draws might also be used as well as a statement that the prize is from a draw in which no tickets were sold. No real lottery does this type of thing.
The email will typically ask you to get in contact with a claims agent. A legitimate lottery operator will have one of their staff directly contact you not an agent. If you do reply to this alleged agent you will be requested to pay them money upfront to cover some sort of charges before the prize money can be paid out. Examples used are banking charges, courier costs, processing or admin fees and others.
Any money sent to these people is unlikely to ever be seen again. Most likely once they have your money you will also never hear from the claim agent again either. In most countries it is illegal anyway for a lottery operator to ask for an upfront payment from a winner. If there are any genuine charges they would simply be taken from the winnings before they are paid out.
Another clue is the type of language used. Terms like Lottery Sweep Stake or Winning Notification are typically not used by legitimate operators, whether official lottery companies or for example other businesses like those that sell UK lottery tickets to non-UK residents.
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