I Won the Lottery!

I Won the Lottery!

That’s right; I really did win the lottery.  Well, at least that’s what an email told me.  Even though I’ve never lived in, or visited England, somehow I won their lottery.  I couldn’t believe my luck while reading this.  It seemed so weird that I had won because just that week a customer came in with a check saying she won the lottery in Nigeria.  Two big winners in one week! 

All I had to do to collect my winning check was send back an email with my current contact information.  There was also a form where I had to fill in my lottery ticket number and the amount I won.  Strange that they were informing me I won, yet they didn’t have my ticket number, but I chalked it up to being lost in translation. So I filled in the winning ticket numbers I would haveplayed.  Deciding the amount I won, well that was difficult.  I didn’t want to appear too greedy so I put down a meager five billion dollars.  I figure that’s the difference between having a plain quarter pounder and having one with cheese for the rest of my life. The English lotto officials were so accommodating.  All I had to do in order to get my winnings was give them my bank account number and they took out the standard several thousand dollars for ticket and handling fees.  After doing this, I was told it would only take a few weeks for them to send me my big winnings.  It’s only been a few months since they emptied out my account, so I know I should be receiving the money any day now.  I wonder what I’ll buy first after I pay off all of the recent debt I’ve incurred.

NO, I did not send them any money or give out my bank account number! Hopefully after reading this, most of you have realized what a joke lottery scams are.  I guarantee it’s a scam any time you receive an email saying you’ve won a foreign lottery.  Why on earth would someone send money to a lottery office in order to get money sent back to them?  Yet it happens all the time. Even if by some one in a trillion chance it was real, too bad!  It’s illegal in the U.S. to play any foreign lottery.   So please don’t get fooled by these emails and watch out for your elders so they don’t fall for these tricks via direct mail or phone and end up losing everything.  To learn more about foreign lottery scams, talk with your local police department, talk with a bank official, or check out http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/alerts/intlalrt.shtm.

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