Lottery scams often occur when people receive an E-mail or a letter from a foreign lottery company whom they have never heard of. This company claims that this person has played in their lottery and has won a great prize which is most of the time a great amount of money. These ways of scamming people are updated ever since the beginning of scamming but the basics of the scam stays the same. The company, or the unknown part promises a random person a lot of money. This amount of money can be won by hitting a jackpot or a heritage that came free. In return for this deal, the person who get scammed needs to send some money in exchange for his or hers prize.
When start scamming?
The first scamming started in 1588 and is known as Spanish jail scamming. In this scam people wrote letters to unknown person which said that they could receive a part of a buried treasure. In order to take part in the deal, these people needed to send a little bit of cash to the ‘’prison’’ so the prisoners could bribe the guards.
Take for notice that these persons do use legitimate companies for their own profit. This is because people will trust a letter or an E-mail from a big company instead of an unknown company they have never heard of.
Modern scamming in the Lotto world
Modern scamming is quite simple. The aim of these people is to make people believe they have won an amazing prize at a well-known lottery. In order to receive this great prize peopleneed to make a small deposit. This small deposit is needed because of the transfer fee etc…. When this first step is done and the criminal has its first amount of money the real game starts. After the criminals have received a person’s transfer fee they send a new letter in which they ask for an even bigger amount of money. This letter looks like it is from a official employee of a lottery and thereby makes it look even more likely to be true. The only thing they do ask is to keep the letter confidential so they will not get caught that easy. When all of this is done criminals can, most of the times, fill there pockets..
Another way of lottery scamming is criminals asking for a person’s identity, bank account etc. in order to prove that they are the lottery winners. The criminals will use the data of the victim to steal money of the people’s bank accounts.
Once someone thinks he or she is dealing with a suspicious lottery, this is what he or she needs to do;
– Never react by giving away personal data
– Contact the lottery which name is used, to check the story is true
– Contact a lawyer or accountant for professional advice before signing the deal
Prevention measures:
– When reading something that probably is being too good to be truth it probably is.Do not fool yourself.
– Remember if you took part in some kind of lottery and if so is this the right lottery?
– Only buy lottery tickets from a third party when the lottery is really known in the country.
– Be alert on companies who ask to make a deposit before they will pay out winnings. There is nothing a player has to pay for besides registration fee and the tickets itself.