UK lottery Scams

» The UK Lottery and fraudulent emails

There is an alarming rate of fraudulent lottery emails, usually telling the victim that they have won a large amount of money and that payment is required to collect the winnings. As always, use your common sense if you receive one of these emails claiming that you have won the UK lottery. Unless you have actually bought a ticket, in the UK or through a reputable syndicate website you will not have magically won the lottery. Only if you hold a valid ticket will you have won a prize. The UK lottery does not give free tickets out to people for promotional purposes.

Also, when someone has won the UK lotto, there are no upfront fees charged by Camelot (the company that runs the UK lottery). It is prize money and therefore you should not have to pay to receive it (unless you are using a syndicate website – in which case these fees are usually mentioned when you join and will be taken out of the winnings – there is no need to take your own money out of the bank to cover costs).

There are some other things to remember:

The UK Lottery does not send emails with Lottery Sweep Stake or Winning Notification in the text.

The UK Lottery does not mention the amount in a winning email (after all this is confidential information!)

The UK Lottery will not ask for personal details via email. Instead it will invite you to log in directly to your online account. Remember that when you are logging into your account that you need to log off afterwards especially if you are using a shared or public computer. Make sure you have up to date antivirus and have up to date computer updates so you are protected from fraud.

Don’t forget to check the email address that it has been sent from. Make sure it is from the national-lottery.co.uk or the syndicate website you have signed up to. Personal email addresses or any that you don’t recognize are more than likely fraud.

Also do not click onto links – these can take you to viruses and can also confirm to the spammer that your email address exists. If in doubt, go directly to the official website – do not follow a link.

An official email will also not have any sense of urgency – fake emails normally give you a deadline to respond. Also look at the logos – are they fuzzy? Have they clearly been taken from an official source? Do the colours look odd?

If you have won a prize you can call the company directly to confirm things. Over the phone any reputable companies will always ask for personal details.

Remember that if something looks too good then it probably is!

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