Overview
The victim expects to receive money or gifts from a prize, sweepstakes, or lottery.
How It Works
Legitimate contests and lotteries do not require payment to claim a prize.
In this scam, the fraudsters charge money for shipping, administrative fees, or taxes on the 'winnings' or use a fraudulent payment instrument (forged checks, for example) to distribute the earnings.
Some versions of this scam require the victim to click a link which leads to a phishing page where the victim risks downloading malware, or they may have their personal data or financial data stolen.
Related Articles
Lottery Fraud by State, Vegas Insider
AI turns an old lottery scam into a Texas crime wave, Dallas News
Listed as a "top 10 scam of 2025" by Vermont Attorney General, VermontBiz January 12, 2026
Synthetic Examples
4.1 Sample Data 1 - count: 400. With fake phone numbers and urls
4.1 Sample Data 2 - count: 354. With fake phone numbers and urls
4.1 Sample Data 3 - count: 354. Same as Sample Data 2 but with [url] and [phone]
Related Scams
2.2.3 Spoofed Or Phishing Interaction Scam: Versions of the prize scam that require the victim click a link to claim their prize are often phishing lures, and thus are related to generic spoofing or phishing scams
Related Crime Schemes
A particular instance of this scam may embed one or more of these related schemes.
Advance Fee Scheme: In an advance fee scheme, the scammer asks for a small upfront fee in advance of providing a larger payout later. In reality, the larger payout never arrives.
Data Loss or Theft: Any scheme that results in victim losing data/scammer stealing data. Data in this context can mean login credentials, credit card details, or other personal or corporate information.
Fraudulent Platform: Any scheme that relies on custom built software that assists the crime. Includes fraudulent trading platforms, fraudulent clickworking platforms, and the like.
Only Pay Shipping: A scheme in which the victim is asked to pay shipping for otherwise "free" products. The products are either not worth the inflated shipping cost, or they never arrive and the whole scheme was to get the victim to pay shipping costs for a non-existent product.
Victim Targeting Context
The scammer may use one or more of the following techniques to reach the victim.
Advertising: The scammer uses advertising to passively reach the victim.
Spray and Pray / Scattered: The scammer approaches many victims at once such as through bulk email or SMS.
Social Engineering: Psychological Manipulations
The scammer may use one or more of these psychological techniques to accomplish the scam.
Celebrity endorsement: The scammer claims a celebrity endorsement in order to increase trust or interest from the victim.
Easy money: The scammer promises easy money or makes appeals designed to leverage victim's greed.
Scarcity: The scammer claims there is only a limited number of opportunities for reaping the benefits from the scam.
Urgency: The scammer employs urgency to increase the likelihood that the victim will take action.
Social Engineering: Impersonation Techniques
The scammer may impersonate one or more of the following groups as part of the scam.
Business or NonProfit: The scammer impersonates a business or nonprofit.
Celebrity: The scammer impersonates a celebrity.