National Lottery - a scam?

elona

I got an e-mail from the national lottery saying I had won even though I had not bought a ticket online.

All they ask so far is that the person sends an e-mail back with their name and address - no bank details or anything.

Pretty sure it is a scam but has it happened to anyone else?

kegan5

That would be someone doing a good job in mimicking the actual National-Lottery theme.

If you hover your mouse over the links you should notice they don't go anywhere like the real site, some of them do things like change it slightly so they remove the hyphen (it's less obvious they are fake then).

Anyway, the real N-L site will tell you that they have exciting news and to log into your account, ...you go to N-L and login and the money will be in your account online

Does that help?

elona

That does help - thanks.

No champagne and dancing in the street then lol;)

Dalkirst

Well you'd be lucky to have won if you hadn't even bought a ticket;)

Searcher

Just for future reference if you do win then you get an email something along the lines of "good news about your lottery account" and to check your account. I don't even think there is a link in the email but it's been that long since I won anything that I can't remember lol


Edit* if I'd had read all the posts properley I would have seen that Kegan5 already said that lol

Freddie_Snowbits

Man came to door offering gold for £500.

Still not seen my gold

Freddie_Snowbits

Just a note, the actual lottery site is

https://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/p/home/home.do

and not as listed above. Besides, the NL actually will email you news about your ticket! such

Dear Freddie,
We have some exciting news about the ticket that you bought for the Saturday 30 December draw. Please Sign In to your Account.

But if you have not bought a ticket, you cannot win.

JohalaReewi

On the other hand, the National Lottery is a bit of a scam itself! They pay nowhere near the odds if you win, and you would be better off betting on the horses or playing roulette or even buying premium bonds.

moonrakerz

JohalaReewi wrote:

On the other hand, the National Lottery is a bit of a scam itself! They pay nowhere near the odds if you win, and you would be better off betting on the horses or playing roulette or even buying premium bonds.

This does does not compute !

The odds of winning the lottery are quite clear, the percentage of the receipts paid out are quite clear. Why is this a "scam" ?

It may not be a good investment - but that doesn't make it a scam.

Honeydog

I remember being in a maths lecture during teacher training before the Lottery came out. The guy talking to us said that it would succeed because only about 25% of people in the UK are educated to the standard of a pass at GCSE maths. He then proceeded to calculate the odds for us and said it was really a tax on people who were not very good at maths!!!

I guess what you actually buy is that feeling of excitement between buying your ticket and finding out you haven't won again.

I won a tenner on the very first ever draw - didn't win the week after and stopped in disgust. Been in syndicates but only to be sociable.

JohalaReewi

moonrakerz wrote:

This does does not compute !

The odds of winning the lottery are quite clear, the percentage of the receipts paid out are quite clear. Why is this a "scam" ?

It may not be a good investment - but that doesn't make it a scam.

People are enticed into buying lottery tickets on the basis that they could easily win a lot of money. But in reality, very few people win anything and the vast majority lose their stake week in week out. It's as much of a scam as the TV quiz channels. Unfortunately it is an official lottery.