How do Lottery/Lotto Scams Work?
Victims are commonly notified by email (also by conventional mail or fax) that they have won a prize in a foreign lottery or sweepstakes. The scam is usually based around the demand for fees (taxes, customs duty, shipping, courier etc) that need to be paid before the winnings are made available. Requests to ‘take the fees out of the winnings’ always get the same response – “We cannot do that!”. Email lottery scams can often be identified simply by the fact that the response email address is an obvious free email account (yahoo.com, netscape.net, hotmail.com etc). What should I know? Almost all the recent cases brought to our notice have involved the Advance Fee formula also favored by thousands of “Nigerian scam” schemes: Victims typically are notified they have won, yet have to transfer fees or provide proof of their identity and/or details of their bank accounts in order to access the “winnings”. The names of the organizations running these operations change all the time, although ma
