{"id":1152,"date":"2020-10-23T18:19:56","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T18:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fraud.flywheelsites.com\/?p=1152"},"modified":"2020-11-09T07:30:41","modified_gmt":"2020-11-09T07:30:41","slug":"lottery-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/lottery-scams\/","title":{"rendered":"Lottery scams"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You get a call or letter informing you that you can win millions in a foreign lottery. Is this your lucky day? Nope, it&#8217;s most likely a scam that&#8217;s preying on your excitement to claim a big prize.<\/p>\n<p>Stay safe. Be Informed.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Crooks take advantage of our natural desire to win.<\/strong>\u00a0You see state lotteries and other contests advertised all the time. Why shouldn\u2019t it be your turn to win? So when someone presents the chance to play a foreign lottery, it may seem like the perfect opportunity.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>It\u2019s illegal to use the mail or telephone to play lotteries across borders.<\/strong>\u00a0U.S. law prohibits it, not only across national borders but state lines as well. So you could end up being accused of illegal activities just by participating.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>No matter how official these solicitations look or sound, they\u2019re not real.<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes the lotteries actually exist, but invitations to play don\u2019t come from governments that operate legitimate lotteries or anyone connected to them. And there is no way of assuring that you\u2019ll ever get the tickets you pay for or, in the unlikely event that you win, you\u2019ll be able to collect the money. The crooks will simply pocket it.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Joining a lottery \u201cclub\u201d won\u2019t improve your chances of winning foreign lotteries.<\/strong>\u00a0Con artists claim that pooling your money with other people means you can buy more tickets and have more chances to win. But the odds of winning remain tiny, and you still don\u2019t know if tickets will actually be bought or if you\u2019ll ever be able to collect.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Be cautious when giving out your credit card or bank account numbers.<\/strong>\u00a0As many people know, crooks can use that information to make unauthorized charges or debits to your accounts, in some cases repeatedly. It is always better to call the actual company to verify the person requesting your information is authorized to do so.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Lottery scammers often insist the money be wired to them.<\/strong>\u00a0That makes it quicker for them to get it and harder to trace.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>Your chances of recovering money from foreign crooks may be even worse than of actually winning a lottery.<\/strong>\u00a0Most lottery scams are perpetrated by con artists in other countries, sometimes using U.S. addresses to disguise their real locations. Differences in legal systems, difficulties of conducting investigations in other countries, and expenses and other complications involved in pursuing cross-border fraud make the chances of getting your money back very, very slim.<\/li>\n<li dir=\"ltr\"><strong>The only guarantee is that you\u2019ll end up on more \u201csucker lists.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0When you respond to a lottery solicitation, you identify yourself as a potential victim, resulting in many more offers for lotteries and other fraudulent money making opportunities.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/fraud.org\/fraud-alerts\/\"><strong><u>Find Fraud Alerts related to this scam here.<\/u><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You get a call or letter informing you that you can win millions in a foreign lottery. Is this your lucky day? Nope, it&#8217;s most likely a scam that&#8217;s preying on your excitement to claim a big prize. Stay safe. Be Informed. Crooks take advantage of our natural desire to win.\u00a0You see state lotteries and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":901,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[130],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1152"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2199,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1152\/revisions\/2199"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fraud.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}