Something Smells Phishy To Me…

The email lottery and sweepstakes winning scams are nothing but advance fee frauds, meaning that the scam requires the victim to pay a fee to the con artist before the victim is allowed to collect the promised (fake) reward or prize.

In the typcial sweepstakes and lottery scams, the mark is contacted via email and told that he or she has just won a significant lotto prize as a result of a winning lottery ticket being attached to the email address of the intended victim.

The catch here is that the winnings are secured through an insurance company or a security company.  To claim the prize, the victim is asked to fill out and file a lottery claim processing form, which most often requires a great deal of information that will probably be used to commit identity theft, too.  After receiving the claim form, the thieves then tell the victim that everything is fine and in order to release the lottery money the insurance premium or security bond must be paid first.  This fee is usually between $500 to $5,000 and once paid to the con artists they will disappear and the fraud unravels quickly at that point.

The victim never receives the lottery winnings or sweepstakes prize.  Never ever.