ECC Sweden (Konsument Europa) is quite often contacted by consumers how have been informed that they are winners in a lottery. These messages are usually sent to the consumer by e-mail, but SMS and regular mail occurs as well. The consumer is informed that he or she has won a large sum of money and all that is needed for the money to be paid to the consumer is his or her personal details. No money is however paid to the consumer.
Instead, the “lottery” wants the consumer to start paying different fees and taxes in order to be able to claim the prize money. When one payment is done, another one is usually requested, and then yet another one. Still, no money is paid to the consumer, due to the simple reason that there is no prize money. The operation is a scam and the money the consumer has paid is more or less impossible to get back.
ECC Sweden is therefore offering the following advice to consumers who are approached by these lottery winning-messages:
- If you haven’t bought a lottery ticket, it is highly unlikely that you have won a lottery. No lottery selects e-mail addresses or phone numbers randomly just to pay out several hundred thousand Euros.
- Real lotteries never use free e-mail accounts. Therefore it is important to investigate what e-mail address the e-mail has been sent from.
- Search the internet. There are several forums and sites where these scams are described in details.
- Never pay any money!
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