A lottery scam, lotto scam, or lottery scamming, is a trick or advance-fee fraud used by lottery scammers to convince their potential victims into sending them money by claiming they are winners in a so-called lottery. The lottery scammers contact their potential victims via telephone, email, SMS Text messages, or on social media websites, claiming that they are from a legitimate lottery organization. The scammers then claim the potential victims are winners in a lottery draw, promotion, award, or even a donation. They (scammers) will then ask their potential victims to send money to cover taxes, bank transfer or processing fees. But, once the victims send their money, thinking they will receive their lottery prizes, the scammers will collect their money and disappear.
Some lottery scammers may even try to scam the victims again by telling them some bogus stories and ask the victims to send more money.
How To Protect YourSelf Against Lottery Scammers
- Never send money to collect lottery prizes. Once you are asked to do so in order to collect a lottery prize, it is a scam.
- Before you can win a lottery, you must first enter it or give your consent to participate in it. Therefore, do not be fooled by lottery scammers who claim that you have won the lottery, award or promotion that you didn't enter or participated in.
- Lottery scammers will use the name of legitimate lottery companies to convince their potential victims into sending them money. Therefore, do not be fooled because someone claims he/she is contacting you from a legitimate lottery company. Look up the lottery company the person claim they are contacting you from in the directory or online, contact the company, and ask them to verify the legitimacy of the lottery.
- Remember, never use the telephone number or email address given to you by the person who claimed you are lottery winners, to verify a lottery. This is because lottery scammers will give you bogus telephone numbers or email addresses connected to other lottery scammers who will pretend to be customer service representatives from legitimate lottery companies.