If you think you've been defrauded in a sweepstakes scam, please contact your local police station. The operator of this web site is a frumpy, middle-age, cat-loving, sweeps-entering woman who is currently employed as a computer programmer. I have no position in the law-enforcement community. While I can sympathize with your loss, I can't actually help you recover anything.

If the scam that ensnared you involved the U.S. Postal Service, you should get them involved as well. In a good number of the cases of sweepstakes fraud I've read, the postal service is often far more effective at catching and punishing contest frauders.

Good luck!

I don't think this is actual sweepstakes fraud, but it makes for interesting reading.

CalTech Sweepstakes Caper

Caltech is known for producing world-class scientists and engineers. But a few of its students have also demonstrated a flair for the law, as a highly controversial 1975 prank that turned on the legalistic reading of a sweepstakes entry form proved.

The sweepstakes in question was held by McDonald’s. It ran from March 3rd to March 23rd, 1975, at 187 participating McDonald’s restaurants in Southern California. The prizes included a year of groceries, a Datsun Z, McDonald’s gift certificates, and cash. But one part of the contest rules caught the attention of three Caltech students who lived in Page House — Steve Klein, Dave Novikoff, and Barry Megdal. The part they noticed was the phrase “Enter as often as you wish.”

What if, the Caltech students wondered, a person entered the sweepstakes one million times? Surely McDonald’s would have to allow this. After all, it was McDonald’s that wrote the rule specifying contestants could enter as often as they wished.

If you don't want to click through and see how the story ends, I'll give you the condensed version. While the students technically weren't violating the rules, their actions seemed unfair to other contestants in the Southern California area, and McDonald's ending up holding a separate drawing that excluded all the entries from CalTech students.

I have a feeling this is why many sweepstakes official rules now contain the wording, "Limit one entry per day".

Brighter Minds Media has a good online article on how to spot online sweepstakes that could be scams. They have four bullet points, one being:

Are there clearly defined Rules and Regulations? Similar to a privacy policy, a legitimate sponsor will lay out the rules – mostly to protect themselves – and will explain the fine print, judging guidelines, and award procedures.

Be sure to click through and read the other three. I can't reproduce them all here, otherwise that could be considered stealing.

If I had wrote the article, there's one more point I would have added. When you find an online sweepstakes, be sure to browse the rest of the company's web site, and determine what product or service the company is selling. If it's not clear how this web site makes money, take a second thought about giving them your email address. No one gives away prizes for free out of the goodness of their heart. If you can't figure out how the company generates income to pay for your prize and their web hosting bill, chances are good they make money by spamming you, or selling your email address to other spammers.

The FTC is now warning that scammers are impersonating government officials when calling about fake sweepstakes wins.

In a new spin on the age-old sweepstakes scam, crooks are getting bolder, using names of government agencies and legitimate phone numbers that mask where they’re calling from. Claiming to represent “the national consumer protection agency,” the non-existent National Sweepstakes Bureau, and even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), they say that the delivery of the sweepstakes prize is being supervised by the supposed government agency. And they’re using Internet technology to make it appear that they’re calling from Washington, DC, the nation’s capital, or the consumer’s own area code.

Two things you should take away from this:

1. There are no sweepstakes currently being offered by the U.S. federal government. Most states have lotteries, but you are responsible for claiming your wins in state lotteries. You will not receive a phone call if you win a lottery. (Think about it, do you give out your phone number when you buy a lottery ticket?) If the government is not holding any sweepstakes, they will not be awarding any sweepstakes prizes, either.
2. Caller ID is apparently not a trustworthy technology anymore.

Woo hoo! Go Yahoo! Go Yahoo!

Yahoo Sues Anonymous Spammers In 'Lottery" Scam

Yahoo filed a lawsuit Tuesday against numerous anonymous "Yahoo Lottery Spammers" for illegally sending phishing messages that enticed users into revealing personal information by tricking them into believing that they won a lottery or received a prize offered by Yahoo.

I hope they succeed. Their first step will be to determine who is behind the spam so they know who exactly they are suing. I am sure the perpetrator will have no money worth collecting. At least the threat of a lawsuit ought to stop some people from continuing the phishing scams.

What someone coming to this site would never know, judging from this blog's placid, cool outer appearance, is the amount of spam it gets daily. I am now getting roughly 70 spam comments a day. There are technical things I could implement that would put a stop to it. But, I am highly entertained by it. Right now, the spam is largely for prescription drugs. I am waiting with extreme anticipation for the day I receive comment spam for a fraudulent contest or sweepstakes. It will make my job of finding things to post on so much easier.

So, spammers, you want to post about your ambien, soma, percocet, and other drugs that I have no clue what they do? (OK, I lie, I at least know a person or two who's taken ambien.) Go for it! Knock yourself out!

For the rest of you, who are actually reading this post, feel free to ignore this and go on to the next article. I can promise you, there's really nothing worth reading in the comments to this post.

The NBC affiliate in Wichita, Kansas reports on a man who didn't win a Wal-Mart sponsored sweepstakes:

For Raj Divicha, a Friday afternoon phone call seemed like the perfect way to end a week as the caller on the other end said he was a winner.

"Due to your recent purchase in Wal-Mart, your number has been entered in a sweepstakes, and that's how we are calling you up," Divicha was told.

The caller, a representative of Easy Saver, said Divicha would receive a free 25 dollar gift card from Wal-Mart and a 25 dollar gas card. All Divicha had to do was pay shipping an handling. Something he agreed to. However, once off the phone, Divicha began to question the offer.

"After the call was over, it strikes me that Wal-Mart never takes my number," Divicha said.

Hooray for Raj. I'm sure he wishes he thought of that while still on the call.

My personal opinion is that his call was from a telemarketer giving a deceptive sales pitch. The company likely sells some entirely different product, and the person who called him was probably behind on quota and needed a sure-fire way to make sure his next phone call resulted in a sale. Lying is not always discouraged in the telemarketing industry.

But, as the title says, this could have been a lot worse. Raj could have found his entire bank balance drained away. Instead, only one charge for a totally different amount was made to his debit card. This is why I think it wasn't a true scammer, but a person desperate to make a sale.

If you ever receive a phone call like this, please be aware that no legitimate sweepstakes administrator would make you pay shipping and handling on a prize win. That just doesn't happen. Raj's own red flag applies as well. Only a handful of the stores I visit ask for my phone number, and Wal-Mart isn't one of them.

I haven't posted in some time, but figured I should today, when I read this article, and realized it's right up this blog's alley.

From the Bendix website:

Bendix Commercial Vehicle Systems LLC and Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake LLC, leaders in the development and manufacture of commercial vehicle safety technologies, are warning their employees, customers, and other consumers about a sweepstakes scam that has appropriated the companies’ identities.

The companies first learned about the fraudulent activities on March 24 when consumers began calling their headquarters to inquire about letters and checks they had received that were marked with the names, logos, and addresses of both Bendix and Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake, a Bendix joint venture with Dana Commercial Vehicle Products, LLC. The parties responsible for the scam distributed award letters and fake checks to consumers through the U.S. mail, claiming that recipients were winners of a sweepstakes. The letter urged recipients to cash the enclosed checks and call a non-Bendix number to find out how to claim the remainder of their monetary prize.

“We want our employees, customers, and consumers to know that this mailing is fraudulent,” said Anthony LaPlaca, Bendix’s General Counsel. “Bendix and Bendix Spicer Foundation Brake are in no way responsible for, or associated with, this activity. Although these documents may appear to be authentic, it is important for the public to know that both the award letter and the check are fraudulent.”

Bendix advises recipients of the fraudulent mailing to follow these guidelines:

• Do not call the numbers provided in the letter.
• Do not attempt to cash the fraudulent checks.
• Alert your local authorities that you have received the fraudulent mailing.
• If available, send copies of the fraudulent documents to Bendix for use in the investigation. Documents can be sent to the companies’ headquarters, c/o the Bendix Legal Department, at Bendix Commercial Vehicles Systems LLC, 901 Cleveland St., Elyria, OH 44035.

Isn't that just incredibly rude of these scammers, to now add identity theft into the mix?

Remember, if you ever are notified of a sweepstakes win for a sweepstakes you never remember entering, it's likely a fraud. I am fairly confident this company has never held a sweepstakes, given what it does for a living.

I admit that I have been living under a rock, and didn't hear about this story until just last night. As the BBC puts it,

An essay that won a six-year-old girl tickets to a Hannah Montana concert has been exposed as a fake.

The essay began with the line: "My daddy died this year in Iraq".

A spokeswoman for the contest's sponsor said the girl's mother told company officials her daughter's father died in a roadside bombing in Iraq on 17 April.

The spokeswoman said Priscilla Ceballos had now admitted it was not true.

Later in the article, we learn that the sponsor disqualified her entry and awarded the prize to another entrant.

Here's the thing about essay contests. Not many people enter them. There's many reasons why, but I think these are the top three:

1. Most people are pretty insecure about their writing abilities and don't feel they can produce a winning entry.
2. Writing an essay is a lot of work, compared to the myriad of other sweepstakes out there where only providing your email address will gain you entry.
3. Many people realize that if they win, their winning essay will be made public, and don't want the attention.

You really ought to enter essay contests when you see them. You actually do stand a good chance of winning. I've heard of essay contests where only about a dozen entries were submitted! You don't have to be a professional writer to enter, either. If these sponsoring companies wanted a professionally-written essay, they'd hire a professional to do it. They actually want essays that sound like an average American wrote it. The winning submission is usually used in magazines, radio commercials, web sites, and in other promotional materials, and your essay shows that real people use their product.

I don't think the woman in this news story really understood point #3. Contest winners, especially in high-profile giveaways like this Hannah Montana one, are sometimes featured in news stories as a way for the sponsoring company to gain a little publicity. They aren't giving away this stuff for nothing. Hannah Montana tickets definitely aren't free! I had my picture taken and published in the local newspaper when I won a year of free housekeeping services back in the late 90's. You, too, should expect to have your name and possibly your picture publicized when you win a high-profile prize. And with that publicity can come interviews.

Therefore, you should enter essay contests fully expecting them to be read aloud on the Today show. (It happened to this woman.) Don't lie, don't reveal any embarrassing tidbits about your friends or loved ones, and don't do anything else you wouldn't want to have associated with your name. Remember, the Internet is forever. When I google my name, I can still find essay contest entries I submitted in web-based contests going back to 2001! Fortunately, if I ever apply for a new job, there's nothing in those entries that I think a Human Resources employee might find and want to disqualify me from hiring. I hope such a thing never happens to the mother in this story.

I end this post with a challenge to all the news organizations that have published articles on this story. All of them mention the mother's name. A few of them also mention the 6-year-old daughter's name. As I just pointed out, the Internet is forever. Would you consider removing the name of the daughter from your articles? Usually minors are not mentioned by name in stories like these. We wouldn't want the actions of her mother to haunt her as she grows up.

I haven't posted in a while, but unfortunately that doesn't mean all contest fraud has now ceased.

An article dated December 5th, 2007 in the Ludington Daily News in Michigan states:

A Pentwater woman was not fooled by the phony sweepstakes announcement she received recently, and Police Chief Mike Schuitema used his cell phone to track the scam back to China.

The article proceeds to explain that all the usual elements were at play in this fraud:

1. The recipient of the letter was told they had just won a large sum of money
2. The winning letter included a check that represented a "down payment" of their prize
3. An amount of that check needed to be sent back to the "contest sponsor"
4. The amount to send back had to be done through Money Gram or Western Union

Not only are these scammers just disgusting, they are also unimaginative. It's always the same thing. Fortunately, it makes this scam easier to spot.

This story is just jaw-dropping:

A 76-year-old Gardena woman sent more than $400,000 to con artists who told her she had won an Australian Sweepstakes, police said Thursday.

The con began in October 2006 when the woman received a telephone call from a man who said she had won the multimillion-dollar lottery.

A week later, she received a letter that looked official and gave instructions on how to collect the money. One required her to send $8,000 in taxes to an address in Jamaica.

The full story is at the Daily Breeze, along with details about another non-sweepstakes-related scam taking place in the same city.

I can repeat this over and over on the Internet: "Don't pay taxes up front on your prizes." "Don't pay taxes up front on your prizes". However, if you aren't online, and I suspect this 76-year-old woman is not, you can't hear me. So here's the moral of this story:

Please tell your parents and grandparents: "Don't pay taxes up front on your prizes".

It is always a scam when someone informs you of a lottery, sweepstakes, or contest win, and requires you to pay taxes up front. It just doesn't work that way. I have won enough sweepstakes myself to tell you this from experience. Taxes are paid AFTER you collect your winnings. If more people knew this, they wouldn't fall prey to this scam.

My least-favorite scam to hear about is in the news again. This time, it's featured in the Maryland Gazette:

Sherry Brown was trying to do the right thing. While her son, Army Sgt. Deon Brown, was serving in Iraq, she was managing his bank accounts at home. And when the letter came telling her son had won thousands of dollars, she was happy for him.

...But Ms. Brown had been duped by a scammer and ended up losing about $10,000 for her mistake.

...Like many scams, the letter addressed to her son, dated June 24, 2005, said that he had won thousands. It asked her to deposit a check for $3,950 and then contact the company. Then she was asked to wire $3,000 to cover alleged taxes and fees for his winnings, and then they'd send the big check.

And here's the scariest part of the article:

It sounded too good to be true, even to Ms. Brown, at the time. She took the check to a couple banks and when they all said it looked legitimate, she deposited it.

This all transpired about two years ago. I am hoping that by now, this bank, and other banks around the country, are aware of this scam, and would not make this call today.

This article has also done some of my homework for me, and lists the red flags right in the article itself:

But upon further inspection, the letter was clearly a fraud. It instructed her not to tell anyone about the winnings and to hurry through the process. "Those should be the red flags," Ms. Brown said.

This mother felt so bad about losing her son's money that she personally repaid his account to make it whole. To those of you out there taking care of a loved one's financial state, please don't repeat her same mistake. And, to those of you out there who pull these kind of scams, don't you feel bad at all about this?

The advertising blitz for McDonald's 2007 edition of their popular Monopoly promotion is in full swing, and I'd like to take this opportunity to warn you about a fast-food sweepstakes scam that I've heard has happened to several people in the past year or so.

If you were to visit the McDonald's 2007 Monopoly online official rules page, you probably won't notice this sentence buried near the middle of the page:

PARTICIPANTS SHOULD NOT SHOW OR GIVE ANY OTHER POTENTIAL INSTANT WIN GAME STAMP OR ANY POTENTIAL WINNING COMBINATION TO ANY MCDONALD'S, TOYS"R"US OR FOOT LOCKER EMPLOYEE.

This is one of the only sentences on the page written in all-caps. They are shouting at you and I hope you hear them loud and clear.

Should you find yourself in possession of a winning food game piece, you should redeem it at your local McDonald's. However, if you think you've won an actual game prize, either by collecting a series of board properties of the same color, or by an instant-win single stamp piece, do NOT bring it to the counter staff. You'll probably be excited to realize you've won, but the best thing to do would be to secure the game piece or pieces somewhere in your purse or wallet, and head for home.

Because the counter crew at your local McDonald's is responsible for redeeming the food prizes, they have been trained to know what those winning game pieces look like. As a side effect, they also will have a good idea as to what the winning game pieces for high-value prizes will look like. If you think your game piece says you've won $25,000 cash, and ask an employee for confirmation, they likely will know for sure if you've won or not. However, in fast-food game piece promotions like this in the past, some employees have taken this opportunity to scam the winners.

I've had two people tell me almost the same story in the past year, and these incidents didn't occur at McDonald's. It may be best if I don't tell you exactly where these happened, because I don't believe those restaurants were responsible for what happened -- the blame rests squarely on the employees. In one case, the woman handed her game piece to the counter staff, who then said he needed better light to read her game piece. He went to the back of the store (where the better light was?), then came back to tell her it wasn't a winner. When she asked for the game piece back, she was told he already threw it away because it was worthless. Some nastiness ensued, but she never did get her game piece back. She was pretty sure she won a prize worth about $50, and that the employee pocketed it.

In the other case, the counter staff confirmed the person I spoke to was a winner, and had her wait for someone to find a claim form. She was eventually given a form, she dutifully filled it out, then handed it back to the counter help along with the game piece. The employee stapled the game piece to the form, told her she'd forward it as necessary, and she'd get her prize in a few weeks. After a few months went by with no prize shipment, she contacted the restaurant. It turned out the employees were supposed to provide her with the claim form, and it was her responsibility to mail it back with the game piece via certified mail. We both agreed it was highly likely the employee unstapled her game piece after she left, and gave the game piece to a friend who was eligible to win prizes in the promotion. Normally, when a company holds promotions like these, employees and their immediate family are ineligible to win prizes. As I recall, this was a good prize too, worth approximately $250.

So please know this: If you win something in the McDonald's Monopoly game that's better than a food prize, please keep it as a secret to yourself until you get home from the store. At home, please visit the McDonald's 2007 Monopoly online official rules page again. Sections 9b and 9c say that these game piece prizes can be redeemed via text messaging, by calling a toll-free telephone number, or by visiting an official game redemption web site.

I hope this long essay of mine doesn't scare you away from playing the game. Good luck!

I just received a really exciting email in my inbox. It says, I'm a Yahoo Winner! A screenshot of the email is below. Please click to enlarge it. What's wrong with it?

I have intentionally erased some parts of the picture for privacy reasons, so if you want to say, "Some parts of the e-mail are missing", that's intentional on my part. Here's the list I came up with:

• This email was created by a time traveler! It's dated January 2038.
• I'm not even told what I've won. I've got to click on a link to find out what I've won. How rude. What a tease!
• The letter says it comes from Panama. I thought Yahoo was based in Northern California? Isn't it one of those Silicon Valley companies?
• I don't remember entering any contests sponsored by Yahoo lately.

See any other red flags? Leave a comment if you see a telltale sign of a fake contest win notice that I'm not remembering to list here. And please keep these red flags in mind if you receive any email like this in your own mailbox.

It's always a joy to hear contest fraud stories that don't include a giant loss of money:

An 84-year-old resident of Bob Hope Village was instructed not to answer unknown numbers after a person who identified himself as a sweepstakes representative continuously called her.

The caller, who had a Jamaican accent, told the woman that she had been “randomly picked” and was a winner of $750,000, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office report.

He told her that, in order to get the money, she needed to go to a Wal-Mart and wire $150 to a Jamaican address. The caller said the money was required by the IRS to cover insurance and miscellaneous costs.

Once she did this, he told her the U.S. Marshals would deliver the check to her.

A sheriff’s deputy came to the woman’s residence on Sept. 15 and called the sweepstakes number pretending to be her grandson.

.......The woman did not give the caller any personal information. The deputy told her not to answer the phone if she did not recognize the number.

You can read the rest of the story at the Northwest Florida Daily News.

There's two things you should take away from this:

1) You do not have to pay any money at all to collect sweepstakes winnings. What is the likelihood that if someone else received this phone call, they would have thought to themselves: "$150 isn't much money for the chance that this could be for real, this may be a scam but I'll chance it because I could use $750K!". Remember, in some foreign countries, $150 in American dollars can go a long way, and it's worth it for the scammer to risk trouble with the authorities over what seems to be such a small amount. The proper amount of money to pay to collect genuine sweepstakes winnings is $0.00.

2) This woman must have caller ID as she was told not to answer the phone if she didn't recognize the number. This isn't always the best advice, as I've had to make emergency calls to family members before from borrowed cell phones. My phone calls would have been refused if I had given everyone I know this advice. However, if you feel your loved ones are at risked of being scammed in a telephone operation, you may want to pass along this little tidbit, if they do have a caller ID-enabled phone.