The British public would be shocked at just how much money is stolen from vulnerable and unaware people every year through lottery scams. It is a known fact that so many people are still unnecessarily falling prey to a scam that has been around for well over a decade now. The scams have absolutely nothing to do with the actual lottery or any valid lottery around the world. The exact figures of these scams are totally unknown because obviously a lot of people are way too embarrassed to come forward and say they have been the victims of such a clever scam.

The scam is well known to many people and the recipient will be informed via either email or letter that they have won a huge amount in a lottery. The scams usually ask for the notification to be kept confidential. The so called ‘winner’ will be required to get in touch with a claims agent who in turn will confirm they have won and of course it will all seem real. It is at this point that the agent will then ask for some money to be sent to cover processing the win and bank transfer fees. You do have to be very careful though as some of these scams will infact have a legitimate lottery name.

There are some easy ways to spot these bogus lottery games.

¢ If you haven’t bought a ticket then you will not have won! It is a fact that free draws where no tickets have been sold do not occur.

¢ A legitimate lottery would never ask for any sort of payment in order to action your winning claim. The law is very strict and it is illegal for a true lottery company to charge a fee to receive winnings. Please remember that if they are asking you for any sort of money they are not legitimate.

¢ Check the email address of the sender. If it is coming from a free email account such as hotmail or gmail then it is a scam.

The British government plans to launch an awareness campaign to highlight that these scams are false and should not be entertained. Plans are underway to introduce new ’scambuster’ teams to assist people who have fallen foul of the lottery swindlers.

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