Olympics Lottery – UK National Lottery

As athletes train and London gears up for hosting a global sporting event, there’s another group busy at work in the run up to the Olympics 2012 – scammers!

Don’t let these fraudsters play games with you and your hard earned cash.

One tactic they’re using is an email with a fake version of the UK National Lottery logo. The email claims you’re the “treasured winner” of a prize draw, carried out in conjunction with the International Olympic Committee as a way to promote the games.

Of course that’s about as far from the truth as London is from Australia.

You are not one of 18 lucky individuals set to share in a total prize pool of 18 million pounds sterling. Do not contact the Award Claims Manager via email, phone or fax. And certainly don’t give over secure personal details or copies of identification documents, like your passport.

We reckon a statement in the email about the prize being ‘fully insured by the UK Treasury’ and ready to be paid into your bank account once ‘all your statutory obligations have been concluded satisfactorily’ would be used later as a guise for some sort of UK Government or tax fee, payable before you receive your winnings. That’s why it’s called advance fee fraud.

The Organising Committee for the London 2012 Olympics Games advises: “this is a scam, do not provide your personal details or pay any money to the people who sent this email.”

WA ScamNet would like to relay that message.

Disregard out-of-the-blue emails advising of a random lottery win associated with the London Olympic Games, or any major sporting event for that matter.

We have put out similar warnings in the past for the FIFA World Cup, and ticketing scams are an issue with any big sporting event.

The UK National Lottery email isn’t the only variation of a 2012 Olympics scam. A Google search brings up more than 100,000 possible results and the contact methods include SMS, letter, fax and uninvited phone calls, as well as email.

If you want to check whether an offer you’ve received in relation to the 2012 London Olympics is legitimate, log on to the official website www.london2012.com for verification.

In November 2011, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission joined forces with the UK Metropolitan Police Service to issue a warning about Olympics 2012 accommodation scams.