Prize, sweepstakes and lottery scams

A message says you've won. It might be a new car from a local dealership, an iPad, a gift card or a store discount code. To collect it, you're told to pay a fee or hand over your bank details first. Real prizes are free to collect, so a request for money or account numbers marks a scam.

How it arrives

Scammers send these notices by phone, email, letter, text and social media. A mailed notice may come bulk rate, which means many other people got the same one. The postmark shows how it was sent.

What the scammer says

• You've won. The prize might come from a lottery the scammer says is supervised by the government, or from an official-sounding body that doesn't exist, such as a "National Sweepstakes Bureau."
• We're from a real agency. Some claim to be from a real company or a government agency.
• It's a foreign lottery. You've won one, or you can buy tickets for one.
• Act now. The offer is for a limited time, so you'll pay before you think it through.

The signs

• A fee to collect. Real prizes are free. A charge for taxes, shipping, processing or customs is a red flag.
• A way to improve your odds. A real sweepstakes picks winners by chance, and paying doesn't change that.
• A request for your numbers. Never give a bank account, credit card or Social Security number to claim a prize.
• A government caller who wants money. The government won't call you demanding money to release a prize.
• A foreign lottery. An offer to play one is almost certainly a scam.
• A check in the mail. Some send a check and ask you to send part of the money back. When the check turns out to be fake, you repay the bank.

How they want to be paid

Scammers ask for a wire transfer, a payment app, cash, gift cards or cryptocurrency. Money sent these ways is hard to trace and hard to get back.

An annotated example

What to do next

Delete a prize message without clicking its links. Don't pay anything or give any account number to collect a prize. Before you trust the company behind an offer, search its name with the words "review," "complaint" or "scam," and look up its contact details yourself. Then tell friends and family about the scam.