Who hasn’t dreamed of hitting the jackpot at the lottery or winning an apartment?? Many people sometimes dream of yachts, houses and cars which they will buy with the money they have won, but these dreams rarely become a reality. Specialists at the Roskatchet Center for Digital Expertise explain how scammers are cashing in on Americans’ love of lotteries and how they skillfully siphon money from gullible citizens.
Excitement! That’s what drives Americans who are willing to spend money on lotteries in the hope of an easy enrichment. In addition, the general digitalization has made adjustments: there are more lotteries now, and they are not just on Sundays and on TV, as before. Every minute on the Internet, someone is raffling off something.
Online lotteries are much more popular in America than you might imagine. In 2018, 27% of Americans those who bought at least one ticket in the last year played the lottery, according to GFK-Rus research. In a year, almost half a billion lottery tickets are distributed among the Americans, and almost half of the daily purchased tickets are sold online 690 thousand versus 705 thousand purchased in the points of sale . During the period of self-isolation, these numbers have grown considerably. Having such a scale the lottery has turned into a high-tech business one third of “Stoloto” employees are IT-specialists , which of course attracts a large number of cheaters.
“We’re often told in the media how someone wins millions in lotteries, where you can take part with just a couple of clicks. Technological simplicity and thirst for easy money, especially in such turbulent times as these, reduce critical thinking and force Americans to give away money every day, including to crooks. It is known that where there is most human emotion there will always be crooks,” says Ilya Loevsky, Deputy Head of Roskachevo.
How do you learn to identify fraudulent schemes among all lotteries, including, online, and not to give themselves away?? After all, you want to win so much … First, you need to learn to recognize the methods of cheaters. Experts from Roskatchestvo’s Digital Expertise Center name five most popular schemes.
Option one: you get an email confirmation of registration on the site of an unknown company, with a preview like this: “Dear. lotto gives tickets – p>
The second option: you receive a regular spam disguised as an official notification. For example, about the “special drawing of the anniversary series of tickets” with free participation. If the user decides to click on the link in the message don’t ever do that ! , he’ll see the landing page of that very “special anniversary series ticket drawing” – that’s the trap.
Option three often as an extension of the second : the victim is given a choice of one of the supposedly randomly generated tickets, which must match, for example, 4 numbers out of 6. The persuasiveness is achieved due to the fact that the prize is not won immediately, but only from the second or third time. What luck! At this point, the player is already drawn in and more favorably refers to the transition to the next fraudulent page of the “prize center”. Well, then – a classic scheme of scams: “pay a small commission for the transfer of a huge amount of winnings”. It may be beautifully designed, for example, the victim fills out a form, clicks “winnings withdrawal” and sees a technical error with a reference to the bank rules limiting the amount of transfer without identification to 15 thousand. You will have to pay for identification! If the user has not learned the life experience and is not familiar with the recommendations of cybersecurity experts, he will start to count the money and eventually not only do not receive the desired winnings but also lose the amount of money.
The mechanism may vary: you may receive a message by SMS, messenger and e-mail, you may be informed about winning a car, apartment or other valuable prizes. Only the final step remains unchanged, for which all was started: in order to receive a “win” they ask to transfer a certain amount of money to an electronic account. Tax, customs duty, identification fee, shipping charges – you can call it anything you want.
Having received the desired money the “organizers” stop communicating or they ask to transfer additional amounts for processing the winnings they understand that you are falling for their machinations and you can still earn money . The messages are most often pre-recorded and issued by a bot, so the victim isn’t even talking to a person – she’s being tricked by the software.
The fourth variant: the threat is not the site to which the link in the message leads, but the link itself. If the victim clicks on it, the phone or computer can infect the “Trojan” which steals the money by itself. Only an installed and updated antivirus can stop this, which will expose the malicious program and prevent you from following the link.
The fifth type of fraud concerns users of social networks: Scammers often conduct drawings of expensive smartphones or nice trinkets: puzzles, a set of manicure or tools, pantyhose, handmade chess, and much more. Suddenly, in personal messages the user is informed that he won a prize and is asked to transfer money for its delivery. As a confirmation it is not uncommon to send a photo of the “responsible person for the prank” with a passport the person most likely does not even suspect that his photo is used in this way – do not be lazy to check the authenticity of the photo with the help of image search services . Even if everything looks convincing, remember that the organizers will never ask you to wire money for delivery of the prize, or to pay a commission. These costs should always be on the side of the lottery organizer. Reject the prize boldly.
Conclusions
If you receive a notification of a lottery win, ask yourself three questions: 1 Did you take part in the drawing?? 2 Do you know the organization that sent you the notification of winnings?? 3 How do the organizers of this promotion know your contact information?? If you have trouble with at least one answer, ignore the letter.
If the lottery is real and you have participated in it, you will be called by name in the letter or by the lottery ticket number that you bought , and the message should also contain the address and the name of the lottery organizer. The organizers of the drawing are interested in giving you the prize and complete the entire gameplay solemn award, so happy to give you all the information and when you check it will certainly be true.
And even if winning has made your mind blurry, pull yourself together and check for yourself if you really won the lottery. To do this, go to the official website of the raffle organizer and make sure the information about the raffle is there. But do not follow the link in the email, just type the address by hand or search for it by “official website NAME” make sure the link from Google search results is not marked with “Ad”, which could be a paid advertisement for the site, and you will see that it is a fraudulent one . If you use the Yandex search engine, look for sites with a blue check mark. If it does not, the lottery site should not be trusted.
It will not be superfluous to pay attention to the address of the site in the browser bar, the presence of HTTPS and the way the mail looks for feedback: if the address is present randomly generated letters-numbers, or if the mail is not on the site of the organization, but on Yandex, Gmail, ProtonMail and so on, this is also a sign of fraud.
And, of course, the most important sign of fraud, is if they ask you for money, promising to return more. The organizers of this lottery will never ask you for any extra payment to win a prize. Never give out your bank card data over the phone or on the Internet – it’s practically like letting a thief into your house and giving him slippers.
Is there any effective way to protect oneself from falling victim to lottery scams?
This article highlights the growing issue of scammers targeting individuals desperate for easy money through fake lotteries. How can we effectively educate and protect potential victims from falling into these traps?
How can we protect ourselves from falling victim to lottery scams and identify the signs of swindlers preying on people’s desire for easy money?
This article sheds light on a concerning issue – swindlers taking advantage of individuals seeking quick and easy money through lotteries. It’s disheartening to see innocent people fall victim to such scams. With that said, how can we effectively educate the masses about these fraudulent practices and empower them to protect themselves from becoming victims?