Lottery Scams

Lottery scams are a form of an advance fee scam, which is a scam that requires people to pay money up front to receive a prize. Scam artists have no intention of awarding you a prize, but instead, they seek to steal your money or personal information. Lottery scams come in many forms such as e-mail, letter, or phone call, but generally have one thing in common: they state that you have won the lottery and request money to claim winnings or to pay fees, taxes, or currency exchanges.

How it usually works is that a fraudulent lottery check is mailed, along with a letter explaining that to claim the remaining winnings, a wire of a certain sum of money should immediately be sent to the lottery sponsor. The reason for the urgency in sending back a portion of the money is that they know check will be returned, either for insufficient funds or for fraud.

Many of these checks are drawn on foreign banks. International items normally take longer to clear than domestic items because they are sent through a collections process, and that gives the scam artists longer to get away with your money. If you spend or use the funds from the lottery check, and the check comes back as fraudulent, the check will be reversed from your banking account, leaving you responsible to make good on the value of the check. By law, accountholders are legally responsible and fully liable for any and all checks, wires, or money orders deposited into their bank account.

Often, lottery scams use Websites. The fraudsters will send official looking documents to you and ask you to confirm their validity by going to a Website created by the fraudster. The Websites ask that you enter personal information to claim a prize or for other reasons. This information is then later used to defraud you. Today's technologies can produce official-looking documents with ease and anyone can establish a Website over the Internet, so use caution when Websites request such information.

Tips for Preventing

• Never provide your credit card, social security, driver's license, passport, or bank account numbers over the phone, Internet or mail to anyone promising lottery cash prizes or memberships.

• It is a violation of Federal law to play a foreign lottery via mail or phone.

• If the lottery winnings appear too good to be true, they probably are.

• Be cautious when dealing with people outside of your own country.

• Never respond to an e-mail, letter, or phone call from someone who offers you a guarantee of winning a prize. There are no secret ways to beat a lottery; all entries have the same chance of winning.

• No legitimate lottery will request a portion of the funds back for such things as fees, taxes, or currency exchanges to claim lottery winnings.

• If you buy into this scheme, expect many more fraudulent lottery or investment "opportunities." Your name may be placed on "sucker lists" that fraudsters buy and sell.

• Legitimate lotteries should not want to operate in a secretive environment.