Lotteries are massively popular, and the idea of winning a life-changing jackpot is so alluring that a small but dangerous number of scam merchants are working hard to exploit it for their own criminal gain. These con men (and women) operate by posing as lottery officials and contacting potential victims by mail, e-mail or even by phone.
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Whichever approach is used, the victim is informed that they have won entitlement to claim a lottery prize. The actual amount that has supposedly been won varies from scam to scam, but in all cases the victim is informed that they need to pay a “release fee”, confirm their bank / credit card details or dial a premium rate telephone number in order for their claim to be legally registered.
You may think that such scams would be relatively easy to identify, but some go to great lengths to appear as official and proper as possible. Printed materials tend to bear official lottery names, addresses and logos. E-mails often contain links to the genuine lottery site they are posing to be from, or to clever duplicate sites which are virtually identical to the untrained eye. Phone numbers are manned by trained teams of scam merchants who take your calls as if they were genuine lottery officials.
Combine all of this with the fact that lottery scams specifically target more vulnerable members of society, such as elderly people, and you can understand why so many get conned. And we’re not talking about the victims being scammed out of small amounts, either. A Powys pensioner lost £11,000 after being stung twice by con men purporting to be from the Canadian and Spanish lotteries. In Yorkshire, a retired couple were conned out of £20,000 after falling for a Euromillions scam. And these are just two fairly typical examples of how people are being scammed all over the globe.
The UK’s Office of Fair Trading has advised everyone worried about lottery scams to exercise extreme caution when notified of a lottery win they haven’t personally entered a claim for. The chances of you winning any lottery which you haven’t entered are zero, so if you haven’t bought tickets for a particular lottery, assume that any winning notification you receive is fraudulent. Under no circumstances should you provide any of your personal or financial information. Nor should you hand over any payment to officials – either in person, by mail or by calling a premium rate number. If you are ever in any doubt about whether or not someone is trying to scam you, call Consumer Direct for advice on 08454 04 05 06. |
