Lottery, sweepstakes, and inheritance scams pulled more than $138 million from American seniors in 2025 alone — a 57% spike from the year before, according to FBI data. Older adults report losing money to this specific fraud category at far higher rates than younger people, and the FTC keeps flagging it as one of the most common scams hitting anyone over 60. The upside: it’s also one of the easiest scams to shut down entirely, once you internalize one rule — you can’t win a contest you never entered.
How It Works
The pitch follows nearly the same script every time, whether it arrives by phone, mail, email, or text:
You’ve won — a big cash prize, a foreign lottery, a sweepstakes you don’t remember entering, or an inheritance from some distant relative you’ve never heard of.
A large sum gets dangled to grab your attention, often framed as “guaranteed” or already yours.
A fee’s required to release it — called taxes, processing charges, customs fees, legal costs, whatever fits the story. Real prizes never work this way. None of them require payment before you get the money.
Urgency gets layered on, usually a tight deadline (often around 10 days), warning that the prize disappears if payment doesn’t come fast.
And the payment itself always avoids anything traceable — cash, money order, gift cards, wire transfer, crypto.
Some versions show up as official-looking letters — seals, letterhead, references to real organizations. Back in 2019, the FTC shut down one sweepstakes operation that had pulled over $28 million from consumers across several countries using exactly this letter approach.
Why It Keeps Working
A life-changing windfall is genuinely exciting to imagine, and scammers build the pitch specifically to feel too good to just walk away from without at least trying. The fee usually gets framed as small next to the promised prize — a few hundred dollars to “unlock” tens of thousands — which makes the math feel worth the gamble, even though no legitimate prize has ever asked for money upfront.
Warning Signs
- You’ve supposedly won something you don’t remember entering
- Payment’s required before you can collect
- Urgency or a hard deadline pushes you toward quick payment
- Payment gets requested via money order, cash, gift cards, wire transfer, or crypto
- The notification just shows up — mail, email, text, phone call — out of nowhere
- An “inheritance” from a distant relative gets mentioned, tied to a lawyer or estate agent you’ve never heard of
What To Do
Hold onto the golden rule: legitimate prizes never require payment first. No exceptions, no matter how official the paperwork looks.
Don’t send money, gift card codes, or financial info in response to any prize notice.
If a real, recognizable organization gets named — an actual lottery commission, say — verify it yourself through their official website, never through contact info in the notice itself.
Hang up on unsolicited prize calls. Don’t engage, even out of curiosity.
Report it — reportfraud.ftc.gov and ic3.gov. If it came by mail, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service too, since mail fraud is a federal offense.
The Bottom Line
Any prize notice asking for payment first — a fee, a tax, a “processing charge” — isn’t real, full stop, no matter how convincing it sounds. The safe response to any unexpected “you’ve won” message is the same every single time: don’t pay, don’t share information, and don’t feel any obligation to respond at all.
Note: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. If you believe you have been the victim of a scam, contact your bank immediately and report the incident to the appropriate authorities.