Unexpected prizes or lottery winnings
You receive a letter, telephone call of email announcing that you have won a prize from a foreign lottery that you have never heard of. You are asked to pay a processing fee or supply banking information to collect your winnings.
People all over the UK receive messages such as these on a daily basis. While some sweepstakes offers are legitimate, the majority of them come from fraudsters who are trying to trick you into paying them money or revealing your personal information.
This type of scam commonly appears in the form of a lottery based in a foreign country. Even though you did not enter this lottery, you have somehow won it, and need to pay money to claim your prize. Most countries do not allow non-citizens to collect prizes from their lotteries, so this is a dead giveaway that it is a scam.
You may also learn that you have won a promotional prize from a company whose name is well known, such as BMW or Coca-Cola. Some of these offers sound convincing because you recognise the name of the company. If you were to contact the company directly through their website, (not by using the contact info that you were given to claim your ‘prize’) they would surely tell you that they have no such draw and did not authorise their company name or logo to be used in such a way. If you receive emails that appear to bee impersonating a known company, it is a good practice to forward the email to that company to let them know that they are being impersonated.
Most of the scams directed at UK residents originate outside of the country, even though they may provide a UK address for contact.
This type of scam typically works the following ways:
- You are guaranteed a winning ticket or prize in exchange for a registration fee
- You are asked to make a purchase in order to receive a prize
- You are asked to call or text a premium rate phone number
- You are given a deadline in which to claim your prize
- You are asked to disclose financial or personal information
- You are asked to transfer money out of the country
Most of the time, there is no prize whatsoever, and once you have sent your money out of the country it cannot be recovered. If you provide your name, address and phone number, you have just given the fraudsters everything they need to use your credit card online. In the next step they usually ask you to pay a small processing fee via credit card so that they can get the card number. They make the fee extremely small so people will think nothing of paying it, not realising that it is not the money but the card number that the scammers want.
In the rare cases when there is a real prize, it is usually worthless, overpriced or misleadingly described and worth much less than the fee that you paid. (the bottom line is, you have just been tricked into purchasing a piece of junk)
To avoid falling victim to lottery scams, remember these tips:
- Ask yourself how you could have won a prize in a draw that you haven’t entered
- When you win a legitimate prize, you do not have to pay money to claim it
- Being asked to use a premium rate phone number is the same as being asked to pay money to claim your prize
- Never provide personal information, banking information or credit card numbers unless you can be absolutely certain with whom you are dealing.
- After you have responded to a fake promotional offer, your name and address will most likely be provided to other scammers
Signs of suspicious ‘prize offers’ include:
- The email, letter or phone call is unsolicited
- You won a contest that you did not enter
- You are given a deadline before which you must claim your prize
- You are asked to pay an ‘administration fee’ in order to process your prize
- You are asked to use a premium rate phone number to claim your prize
- The ‘contest’ originates in a country other than your own
- Prizes are in foreign currency
- You are asked to transfer money out of the country, especially to Canada or the Netherlands
- You are asked to provide personal information, banking information or a credit card number
You can protect yourself against unsolicited lottery scams by remembering that you should never have to pay money to receive a prize that you have won. Also remember that you cannot win a contest that you did not enter. The fraudsters usually claim that they selected you at random, but this is completely false; no legitimate contest in the world selects its entrants this way. Do not enter any sweepstakes from foreign countries, or any contests unless they are from a company that you know well.
Common lottery scams
Canadian lotteries
Many UK citizens have sent thousands of pounds in response to unsolicited telephone calls that they have received regarding fraudulent Canadian lotteries. Some people have been scammed out of as much as £300,000 as the scammers continue to ask them for more and more money to cover the costs of claiming their winnings. These lotteries are nonexistent, and the people will never get anything in return for the money that they have paid out. All Canadian lotteries are government-run and can only be claimed by citizens of Canada. Under no circumstances would they ever pay prizes to people located outside of Canada. Knowing this can protect you from this particular scam.
The El Gordo Lottery
Officials from the El Gordo lottery have sent out a warning regarding scammers that have used the so called Spanish lottery, for fraudulent purposes. They have even gone so far as to forge bank forms and other documents in order to fraudulently receive money. Loterias y Apuestas de Estado
People across the UK have been receiving emails and letters stating that they are Spanish lottery winners. The ‘lucky winners’ are told that they need to supply banking information to receive their prize. They are also informed that a percentage of the money that they have won will be held to cover expenses. The ‘winners’ are contacted at a later date and asked to pay an assortment of processing fees before their prize can be released. Those who are unfortunate enough to have sent money will never receive any sort of prize. Authentic Spanish lotteries have tax-free prizes.
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Received a letter today from EUROMILLIONS COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS ONLINE LOTTERY telling my husband he had won £400,000.00, and asking him to contact DAVID NELSON at TOTAL FINANCE SECURITY COMPANY. There was a form enclosed to fill in with all personal details and bank details. Its gone through the shredder now.
Guten Tag ; ich bin Die Person die an eurem Spiel Gewonnen hatt und immer noch nicht Ausbezahlt wurde Ich habe denn Letzten Brif an Sie
am 16.12.2011 gesendet aber da Weinachten ist bald kann der Brief später ankommen .Ich Habe 900.000,00€ GewonnenSie haben mich bestätigt als gewinner mit der ID: CHE8302******(Kloten)MBRA59D-348324
ID-Verschlüsselung; 43968065207 .2011 Formular O4EF28
iCH BIN iHNEN dANKBAR UND HOFFE DAS ES KEINE fINTE IST .
Gilbert Mc.Brand
Dietlikerstr.59
CH-8302 Kloten
same card, same reg.no,same scam! no wonder they keep on with the scams, the profits are enormous. bin it
I get these letters every single day bar Sundays. I rest easy in the knowledge that is is costing them in printing and postage for me to bin it.
I received a letter from Eurosystem Sweepstake Int’L Lottery Board SA
I was asked to contact my claims agentDon Alfredo Sanchez the foreign Operations Manager of Eurosecuritas and Financier SA Tel 0034 etc.
Money must be claimed by 28/03/2012.
Also 10% of my winnings belongs to Eurosecuritas Company SA.
This 100% will be remitted after you have received your winning fund in your country.
Is this a scam, looks very like it.
i’ve done that too, if it’s by post or email then i just say, take the money out the winnings and send the rest, of course they never do.
this one’s a scam of sorts, got an email of red cars, saying they’ve checked my driving record and i could become a driving instructor.
since i’ve never passed my driving test, i sent an email back saying… bloody amazing that, didn’t even know i took it, never mind passing it. if you you happen to know where my driving license is please be so kind and let me know.
i also have received the international fulfillment registry card for 10pounds registry fee to claim 735,300.00 poppy cock, wot a scam, they want rounding up and shooting right between the eyes or more painful areas if possible
Have received a similar card, it is very official looking and I wonder how they got my details. It is all very well telling people who report this to ignore it but shouldn’t someone be prosecuting these scammers so that the people who fall for it will be protected. ? ? The address on the card must be correct as they want the money sending there so why not just do a raid on them and stop the scam ?
It requests the money to be sent to SRC PROCESSING CENTER G PO BOX 2913 SHAWNEE MISSION KS 66201 USA
Please don’t give your account details to Euro Millions Commonwealth of Nations – SCAM. iF YOU REALLY HAVE WON THEY CAN SEND A CHEQUE THEY DON’T NEED YOUR BANK DETAILS.
I have received such a letter today. I reported this to Citizens Advice, in order that they may take action to prevent this scam from conning anyone out of their money.
My mother has dementia I have just taken 10 letters off her pretending to post them, no cheques or bank details in them but I don’t know what’s she’s been doing before this
She thinks she’s writing to friends , my dads in hospital after falling down the staires and breaking his back so he can’t keep an eye on her
Best thing is to put card/letter into an envelope with the label & send back, perhaps if everyone causes them to pay for postage it will help stop this nonsense.
The Euro millions scam is still going on in 2015. My 78 yr old father almost fell for it until I overheard him talking on the phone to some man in Spain about getting $2000. to fly there and sign papers to release the money. I looked up the name of the lottery and found this sight then showed my father who promptly hung up the phone. I read him all the information that you provided concerning lottery scams. I’m hoping this won’t happen again, he was lucky I came by when I did.
Following completion of a Groupon questionnaire and a promise of some cleansing cream for doing so and all I needed to do was pay for package & postage. This I was willing to do as the product looked good, since that date in June this year I have had £382.98 taken from my account and only last week I received further products that I never ordered. I contacted my bank and they agree this was unethical but within the law as I had provided them with my bank account details and in the process hadn’t read the terms and conditions of the gift being offered. I recognise that I am partly at fault in supplying my bank details and perhaps more importantly not reading the full terms and conditions of their offer and according to the bank the company in question operate from three different website and they rely totally on customers not being aware that within the 14 day trial period you must let them know should you not wish to continue, this I wasn’t aware of and this has proved to be a costly mistake. Is there anything I can do to reclaim the money taken from my account? The company is Called Retinolla and they have a PO Box number 7574 based in Milton Keynes.