LANSING, MI — The Michigan Lottery is warning the public about a scam in which people are told they've won a big prize but need to pay a fee or provide sensitive personal information to collect it.
The scam works like this: A person gets a letter, email, or phone call to inform them that they've won a big lottery prize but must pay a fee or provide sensitive personal information to collect the prize.
If the person agrees to pay a fee, the scam artist convinces them to mail a cashier's check, make an electronic funds transfer, or even arranges a meeting to get the money in cash.
If the person agrees to provide sensitive personal information, the scam artist may be able to commit identity fraud.
In some cases, after getting money from the victim, the scam artist comes back asking for more for unexpected processing costs or fees or uses some other excuse to try to get more money from the victim. the more money the victim supplies, the longer the scam will continue.
The public to use common sense when dealing with anything suspicious keeping in mind that if you haven't bought a ticket, you can't win a prize.
Attempts to defraud individuals increase during periods of uncertainty such as the outbreak of COVID-19 in Michigan, lottery officials said.
To check if a lottery prize, offer, or promotion is legitimate, members of the public may contact their official state lottery using the contact information on the official lottery website. A list of official government lottery websites can be found at https://www.lotterypost.com/links.
Players who believe they have been the victim of such a scam should contact their local law enforcement agency.
This is one phone been waiting for, perhaps those are the blocked/dropped on the landline which works much better than cellular. Had numerous IRS ones and lately social security ones. One time with the fake IRS said meet me @ the airport in an hour.
To think : Out of the blues you get a phone call or email telling you that you won millions. How lucky of you. You have been playing the lottery for some time & won nothing worth talking about. You have checked your numbers 3 to 4 times & you certain you lost, but some strange outfit says you have won.
Treat these scams as though your ex spouse has contacted you, telling you that he or she needs to go over the distribution of the wealth 2 years after the divorce was finalized. Would you listen?
Thank You Michigan Lottery. If it sounds to good to be true than it probably is.
The victim should contact family, friends, Pastors, cops.
The IRS still hasn't provided a site for those without direct deposits so people should be very careful of fraud when the stimulus checks are distributed. And there are literally thousands of new charity sites asking for money. The lottery scams are bad enough, but don't get caught in a COVID-19 scam.
A bunch of scams are going around, heads up.
Absolutely old way of scam and really, if you yourself checked the results of the lottery and know that there is no win, why listen to this nonsense and even more so throw money. It's just crazy