We’ve all had them arrive unannounced and uninvited into our email inboxes, the hoax emails claiming to to be from one of the many lottery organizations around the world and advising us that we have won a lot of money. They generally misrepresent legitimate operators than run lotteries for governments or provide a service like selling UK lottery tickets to people in other countries. In truth these people have no connection to the legitimate operators. Be very careful, these are usually scams of the the type often referred to as advance-fee fraud. Their goal is to actually get money from you while pretending to be contacting you in order to give you money.

So how does one avoid falling victim to these ruthless crooks and make sure that a notification of winnings is legitimate? There are a few ways to recognize a lottery scam and reduce your risk of being conned out of your hard earned money.

One important fact to bear in mind is that you cannot be a winner in a competition that you didn’t even enter. This may sound obvious but a lot people are still fooled like this. Be on your guard if you are suddenly sent an email telling you that you are the lottery winner a of a lot of cash yet you never even bought a ticket in a foreign lottery.

The secrecy they ask you to observe is another tell-tale sign of this type of scam. They reason they give for this is that there has been a mix up with some names and addresses. Terms like email draws might also be used as well as a statement that the prize is from a draw in which no tickets were sold. No real lottery does this type of thing.

In the email you will usually be requested to make contact with a claims agent. In the case of a genuine lottery a staff member will make direct touch with you not a third party. If you should contact this agent they will ask you to make a payment to them to cover, processing fees, courier charges or some other bogus reason.

No genuine lottery operator charges upfront amounts that must be paid before you can claim your winnings. In any case this is illegal in most countries. A real lottery will deduct any charges for the winnings, so you should be very suspicious of anyone who asks for money upfront. If you pay any money over to this agent its almost a guarantee that you will never hear from them of see your money ever again.

Also Watch the language used. Legitimate organizations, like lotteries or those who sell UK lottery tickets in other countries don’t use terms like Lottery Sweep Stake or Winning Notification in the text of their emails and they also would never mention the winning amount in the of the email.