August 13, 2010
Can I Buy UK Lottery Tickets Safely
Most of us will have seen them before, the scam emails that are supposedly from one or other of the lottery operators that are located all over the world. These messages claim that we have won a lot of money. Usually they mimic the details, logo and name of a legitimate lottery operator, like those who sell UK lottery tickets to buyers in foreign countries. Actually most of these senders are not linked in any way to the legal operators of lotteries. Mostly these mails come from people who operate a scam also known as advance fee fraud. Their aim is not to pay you winnings, even though that’s what they claim, but rather to get money from you.
So how does one avoid falling victim to these ruthless crooks and make sure that a notification of winnings is legitimate? There are a few ways to recognize a lottery scam and reduce your risk of being conned out of your hard earned money.
The first thing to remember is that you can’t win a competition that you didn’t enter. Obvious as this sounds people still get tricked like this. If you have never bought a ticket to a foreign lottery and you suddenly get an email stating you have won a large amount of money be immediately suspicious.
Another hallmark of lottery scams is the air of secrecy. Many of them ask you too keep your winnings a secret because of a mix up. They also use terms like email draws or claim the winnings are from draws where no tickets are sold. No legitimate lottery operates like this.
The email will typically ask you to get in contact with a claims agent. A legitimate lottery operator will have one of their staff directly contact you not an agent. If you do reply to this alleged agent you will be requested to pay them money upfront to cover some sort of charges before the prize money can be paid out. Examples used are banking charges, courier costs, processing or admin fees and others.
No genuine lottery operator charges upfront amounts that must be paid before you can claim your winnings. In any case this is illegal in most countries. A real lottery will deduct any charges for the winnings, so you should be very suspicious of anyone who asks for money upfront. If you pay any money over to this agent its almost a guarantee that you will never hear from them of see your money ever again.
The language used is another clue. Phrases such as Winning Notification and Lottery Sweepstake are generally not used by genuine lottery operators or associated businesses that sell UK lottery tickets in other countries for example.
Tags
Related posts
Filed under Hip-Hop and R&B by musicnews