Have you received an phone call from "Jeff White" (name probably ficticious), of "U.S. Customs Claims Dept" at "Winners International Lottery" telling you that you won a lottery and you needed to pay $575 via Western Union to cover handling and then your winnings check would be hand delivered? It is a scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners vian email (see footnote)! The scammers may change the names and details, but it is still a scam!
Below is the example of the fake email scam (the email is the scam, not any persons or companies named in the email) claiming to be from the "Winners International Lottery", related by the victim.
Although the most important clue is that no legitimate lottery will ever ask a winner to pay fees to collect!, there are many other signs that this is a fraud.
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
Received a phone call re my winning 3.6 million dollars from Winners International Lottery. I was to send $575 via Western Union to cover handling and then my check would be hand delivered after I returned the call to 876-436-6634, a Mr. Jeff White, U.S. Customs Claims Dept. , this sponsored by MGM Casino, Las Vegas. Money to be sent to Aaron Cuevas, 186 E. 10th St., Chicago, IL 60411. I of course did not follow thru. Received two more calls from above Mr. White and he hung up when I stated that a legitimate lottery would take taxes, handling, etc. out of the money before delivering it to me. I got as far as "legitimate lottery" and he hung up. How can these people continue to operate these scams? This is the third call I have had - all different scams.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
* Re: emails of winnings. We know of only ONE exception in the world to this rule - and if you bought a ticket from them, you would know it, and would used their safegaurds.