| The U.S. Federal
Trade Commission has this advice for consumers who are thinking about
responding to a foreign lottery or other potential cross-border scams:
- If you are a US citizen and you play a foreign
lottery through the mail or by phone, you are violating federal law.
- If you buy one foreign lottery ticket, expect more
bogus offers for lottery or investment "opportunities." Your name will
be placed on "sucker lists" that fraudulent telemarketers buy and
sell.
- Keep your Social Security, credit card and bank
account numbers to yourself. Scam artists often ask for them during an
unsolicited sales pitch.
- Do not fall for a promise. Telephone solicitations
that require an upfront fee for advance-fee loans, unidentified investment
opportunities or prize promotions are against U.S. law. Furthermore, legitimate
lenders do not guarantee a loan before you apply, especially if you have bad
credit or no credit record.
- If you do not recognize a telephone area code,
check it out in your telephone directory.
- The bottom line, the commission says, is to
ignore all solicitations for foreign lottery promotions. If you
receive lottery material from a foreign country, give it to your local
postmaster or contact your state attorney general's office or the FTC.
For further consumer information please
consult the following government agencies web sites:
Warning: Do not send any money or personal details to anyone
who says that you have won a prize or anything else in a lottery or sweepstake
that you have not previously entered. Such claims are almost certainly frauds.
Always check fully any person or organisation before sending anything to
them.
Lottery and Sweepstake themed advance fee frauds are
on the increase. Individuals are targeted by e-mail and notified that they are
a category A, B or C winner of a substantial amount of money, usually totalling
millions of dollars, pounds or euros.
'Processing Fees'
The processing fee is usually the way to identify these scams. In some
cases a 'processing fee' is mentioned in the initial 'win' communication.
However some fraudsters wait until the 'win' recipient is sufficiently
interested before asking for money.
Up front fees before the release of the
'jackpot' are usually justified as insurance costs, claim verification charge
or a fee stipulated by a regulatory authority. There is nothing in British law,
nor would there ever be, that requires a prize winner to make any payment in
order to claim a prize.
Never
respond to any such requests for advance payment.
"But they
haven't asked for any money."
Some fraudsters set out to steal identities.
Stop and think before you ever release personal information such as passport
number, home address, telephone number, banking details, etc, to unknown
organisations.
Websites
Many win notifications contain
hyper-links to websites purporting to act for the lottery organisers. Taking
the form of financial institutions such as insurance companies, the management
of 'lottery' funds will appear as only a minor part of their wider
organisation.
They may seem professional at first glance, but most do not
bear close scrutiny. Most of these websites have been pirated from genuine
organisations; as a result of cutting and pasting you may find that text is
inconsistent, spelling irregular and the Contacts page will contain mobile
phone numbers.
Finally….
How can you win a lottery or sweepstake if you never
purchased a ticket? Miller
and Dr. Ed Stanek gave these tips to
avoid lottery and sweepstakes scams:
- Never wire funds from a check
you've received to pay “taxes or fees” for a promised lottery
or sweepstakes prize. You'll never see your money again. Reject any kind of
scheme that sends you a check and asks you to wire money back.
- To avoid all types of lottery
scams, never believe a letter, phone call or Internet message from anyone who
claims they can guarantee you a prize! Legitimate lotteries do not guarantee
that you will win a prize and do not require people to join prize pools to
play.
- Never pay processing fees,
insurance or commissions to claim a lottery prize. Legitimate lotteries do no
require winners to pay anything up front to receive a prize.
- Keep your Social Security, credit
card and bank account numbers to yourself. Scam artists ask for them with the
goal of accessing your accounts and stealing your money.
Tennessee
Lottery Warns Against E-mail Fraud
NASHVILLE, Tennessee, USA
(July 7, 2008) -- Email users are asked to beware of a fraudulent email
circulating nationwide suggesting recipients are prize winners of the
Tennessee Lottery. The email asks
recipients for a payment to cover processing fees.
The Tennessee Lottery
never requires fees to claim a prize and asks that anyone who receives such an
email or letter to disregard it.
Please visit our website at
www.tnlottery.com and click on
“avoid scams” for information concerning guidelines and
suggestions to help you avoid frauds and scams.
Since the Tennessee Lottery
began selling tickets on Jan. 20, 2004, it has raised more than $1.1 billion to
fund specific education programs, including college scholarships,
pre-kindergarten and after-school programs. For more information, please visit
www.tnlottery.com
CONTACT: Rachel
Petrie, 615-324-6555 Office, 615-351-6972 Mobile.
SOURCE: The Tennessee
Lottery. Yahoo! Files
Lawsuit Against ''Lottery'' Spammers
SUNNYVALE, California
(May 27, 2008) -- As part of its continued commitment to protect Internet users
from e-mail scams, Yahoo! Inc., a leading global Internet company, today
announced the filing of a lawsuit against “Yahoo! Lottery
Spammers” for unlawfully sending e-mail messages to Internet users for
the purpose of deceiving them into believing that they have won a lottery or
prize offered by Yahoo!. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for
the Southern District of New York in New York City, under the Federal Trademark
Act, the Federal CAN-SPAM Act, and related state laws...............Subscribers Spanish Police Bust Nigerian
Lottery Scam
MADRID, Spain (April 17, 2008) - Spanish police
have arrested 87 Nigerians they say are linked to a scam which embezzled
millions of dollars out of Americans and Europeans by sending letters saying
the recipients had won the lottery.
The fraudsters sent around 15,000
letters every day telling people they had won up to 3 million euros (US$4.8
million) in the Spanish lottery, but asking winners to pay official costs to
release their prize, police said on Thursday.
In this way they swindled 20
million euros out of 1,200 people at an average payout of 18,000 euros per
victim.
"As they sent an average of 15,000 letters every day, only 20 or
30 people had to fall into the trap for their earnings to be very high," a
source close to the case told El Pais newspaper.
Police estimate the total
amount of money swindled by the ring could be as much as €170 million
euros, as the majority of victims were too embarrassed to admit they had been
taken in. Similar scams are run via emails. Isle of Man Lotto Promotions UK - F.S.C Public
Warnings
FSC reference: CD/01/2008
DOUGLAS, Isle of Man (January 15, 2008) -- The Financial Supervision
Commission (FSC) has been made aware of emails allegedly originating from a
Melinda Gyori at Isle of Man Lotto Promotions UK............Subscribers
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