Are you receiving emails and letters from legitimate sounding lottery organizations that assure you are a winner in a lottery drawing? Well, so did many of us here at the bank. And these lottery drawings held in distant countries!?! This is a scam, an old one that comes around every year or so. This is what we found regarding this scam.

Each lottery e-mail or letter is rich in detail about when and where the drawing was held, the lucky ticket number, how the fortunate person or company name was included in the drawing, who was to pay out the funds, the payer’s phone number and fax numbers plus their website information, and how much money is supposed to be coming. Most often, all the “supporting” information is false. In some cases, the names of real lotteries and banks are involved; however, the financial institutions have no relationship with them.

So far we’ve seen versions of this fraud come from “De Lotto Netherlands,” “Diamond Lotto South American,” and “Canadian Lotto,” just to name a few. They are all the same scam. The scam artists change the names of the lottery handing out the winnings. Those who try to collect their “winnings” soon find themselves receiving e-mails or letters informing them they have to pay facilitation fees before the big pay outs will come to them. There are no lottery winnings waiting, but rather scam artists ready to trick people into wiring “handling fees” directly into their accounts. The “lucky” winners scramble to pay the fees while the clock is ticking, but they never receive any winnings.

Be careful if you receive any e-mails or letters similar to these. Ask yourself these questions: Did you buy a lottery ticket? Did you give them your name? Did you provide it when you purchased a lottery ticket? If you answer is NO to these questions – don’t send any money – it is a scam.