What is a lottery scam?

Lottery scams are usually fraudulent emails offering you a vast sum of money.

This lottery will usually be in a different country. You'll be told that in order to claim your prize you'll need to enter your account details online, or contact someone claiming to be an official from the lottery company.

You may be asked to pay tax, legal or banking fees before your winnings will be released to you. However no such winnings exist. A simple way of spotting these scams is considering whether you ever entered the lottery you are the supposed winner of. If you've never played that particular lottery, you could never have won it.

Visit our Security Centre (opens in a new window) for more advice on fraud and scams.