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Lottery Scam Letters
PART I: The answers to your most frequent questions,
continued
The lottery criminals are
threatening to report me to the FBI and the Secret Service.
Can they do that?
The people who are threatening you are fraud criminals.
They are participating in criminal activity. They cannot
threaten you with notifying Federal law enforcement (the Federal
Bureau of Investigation or the Secret Service or Scotland Yard) because to do so they
have to explain the situation. The FBI and the Secret Service
are aware of this criminal activity. Also, using threats to
frighten you into sending them money is called extortion and is
against the law in all countries. You do not have to worry about
their threats. Do not pay any attention to them. Ignore
their threats. It is a good thing to report the threats to the
FBI or the Secret Service or Scotland Yard. You should do
this immediately. ^
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Is my winning notification letter true if the names
in the letter are different from the ones in
your database?
Even if the names on the winning notification are
different than the ones in the database, that does not mean the letter
is okay. It is not the
names that make the lottery letter true
or false. It is what the letter SAYS that makes it
fraudulent. That is why you will
find a list of sentences and statements in PART II below that show you
how to identify a fraudulent lottery letter. If the letter you
have contains even one of the sentences or statements
listed below, your letter is a fraud!
^ Top
I've played the lottery
online. How do I know this isn't from them?
In order to play an online lottery or sweepstakes,
you must first REGISTER your name, address, phone number, and email
address at the online lottery site. If you are registering
with an online lottery, you are often asked to register a credit
card number as well. ALL LEGITIMATE ONLINE LOTTERIES AND
SWEEPSTAKES HAVE TERMS AND CONDITIONS / RULES & REGULATION PAGES.
These pages explain how you are notified if you win.
In many cases, in order to see if you have won, you
must log into your registered account. Some online lotteries
will notify winners, but you still must log into your account in
order to check your winnings and choose whether you want to be paid
by check or by a credit to your credit card.
Sweepstakes notify you by email, but still request
that you log into your account to make payment determinations or to
confirm the email. ^
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They've asked me to refer them to
friends and family.
This is their latest ploy - network marketing.
The sad thing is that it's working. If you have sent off the
name and address, email, telephone number of a friend or relative in
reply to a winning lottery notification, please call that person
immediately and have them read all the information or explain
the scam to them yourself. ^
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My notification came by
standard
post and the documents look genuine. Doesn't that make it
real?
Lottery scam letters are sent by email, regular post,
Federal Express, DHL, UPS, etc. All available deliveries
methods are used. In the US, the letters - along with the
envelope they came in, regardless of the delivery method - are to be
taken to the nearest Post Office, ATTN: US Postal Inspector.
Any fraud delivered within the contiguous United States of
America using any official delivery system comes under the offices
of the US Postal Inspector General's Fraud Investigation Unit.
As for the documents looking oh-so-real, they're not.
Using a computer graphics program, a person can create any kind of
document whatsoever. Please remember that unless you can
DIRECTLY contact the registered lottery company itself, not some
agent, not some fellow on a cell phone, not some person in a country
where the lottery is not registered with the
gaming board,
watch out!
Lastly, always remember - it's not who wrote the
letter that makes it a scam, it's what the letter SAYS that makes it
a scam. ^
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The lottery claims that it is
"REGISTERED UNDER THE DATA PROTECTION
ACT." Is that true?
The
Data
Protection Act of 1998 has absolutely nothing to do with
licensing or registering lottery management companies or lottery
commissions, nor does it register anything at all. It is an
Act created in the United Kingdom for British citizens to regulate
the access and dissemination of their personal information by those
who have possession of it.
PART II:
A scam letter is a scam letter because of what
it SAYS. On this next page you will see the most common claims
and phrases used by Lottery Scam Letters. It only takes one of
phrases or claims to make the entire letter a fraud.
^
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Continue
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