Scammers use prizes and sweepstakes to get your attention
CHICO » For someone who hasn’t bought a lottery ticket in at least eight years, I sure do think a lot about what I’ll do with the money when I finally win.
I do, however, occasionally partake in online music gear giveaways so long as they are clearly conducted by sources I trust and are backed by wellknown brands. I never win more than additional junk mail trying to get me to sign up for other, sketchier contests.
Those who do frequently play the lottery or sign up for sweepstakes are the perfect target for scammers pretending to be the prize-bearer, happy to tell you that all of your problems are about to be solved with one of those big Happy Gilmore checks.
The Federal Trade Commission breaks down how prize scams work.
Typically, the target is contacted through email, by phone or with a letter informing them that they won the lottery or a prize such as a brand new car.
The good news is that you’ll be able to tell that it’s a scam pretty quickly, either because you didn’t enter jack or because of the ultimate telltale sign: They want money.
Ah yes, but of course, if you play the lottery or prize sweepstakes, you already paid by purchasing a ticket. I mean, it’s not actually a prize if you have to pay for it now is it?
Some scammers try to skirt around this by asking for banking information instead of requesting money straight out of the gate. This is a bit more dubious because if the prize is money, well then of course they need to know where to transfer it to, right?
Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. Plenty of people have found the rationality in that statement only to hand over their private information willingly just to find out that the prize is for the scammer, not them.
The Federal Trade Commission asks that anyone who thinks they may have encountered a scam such as this, or God forbid provided money to the scammer, to file a report at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Additionally, if the scam came by mail you can report it at uspis.gov/report.