Anyone who receives an email telling them they have won ‘The Microsoft Lottery’ is being warned that this is a scam – there is no Microsoft lottery.
The so-called Microsoft Lottery is just one of several forms of lottery fraud. Lottery fraud is an advance fee fraud, which fraudsters use to try to trick people into paying an upfront fee for a fictitious gift or cash prize.
How does lottery fraud work?
Lottery fraud usually begins with an email saying you’ve won a lottery (sometimes a foreign lottery) that you might not remember entering. In order to claim the money, the criminals say that you need to pay a sum of money in advance to cover certain costs. They also use well known brands, such as Microsoft, to make their emails more believable.
Report Microsoft lottery fraud
Anyone who has lost money to a Microsoft lottery fraud can report it to Action Fraud. Microsoft wants to know when this has happened and asks anyone who has lost money to scams using the Microsoft name to email their crime reference number to: lotfraud@microsoft.com
Read more about Microsoft lottery fraud on Microsoft’s website.
Please note: Action Fraud is not responsible for the content on external websites.
To report a fraud, call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 or use our online fraud reporting tool.
See also:
Lottery scams
Advance fee fraud
