I can't believe people still fall for this nonsense

How stupid do you have to be to fall for this, excuse me I have £5M for you here but you have to send me £25,000 to enable me to process your claim. If you are that stupid you deserve all you get.

Oh and to any morons reading.... I have £4M here for anyone that wants to send me a few hundred quid answers on the back of a postcard to Ecto!!!

You get contacted out of the blue and are told that you are the winner in a lottery that you didn't buy a ticket for and probably didn't even know existed. They then ask you to stump up money in order to collect your winnings.

Come on. It's hardly rocket science is it? Are people really so stupid as to hand over tens of thousands of pounds to these people?

It is sad to think people fall for this prank over and over again,if they are greedy and daft enough,so be it.

This lottery thing ... it's like ... a lottery.

That is a shame...... you should be ashamed. It could have been an elderly person that hadnt heard of the scams before...... Do none of you have mothers/fathers or grans/grandads.

#7
Not now.

#7 that's slightly patronising. Anyway, you don't need to have heard of these scams before to twig that they're not on the level. If something seems too good to be true etc etc

As #7 points out I assume that people who fall for these schemes are the elderly or otherwise vulnerable. Still, they deserve all they get don't be they? Let's all be smug and mock them.

#9 Morag
It is not in the least patronizing to point out that some, not all, people become confused as they age. But perhaps you think that it is their own fault?

#9 Im thinking Sister Morag doesn't actually know the meaning of the word patronising.

Well I know that just now I wouldn't be so stupid to pay money or give my bank details to scammers like this.

Hopefully by the time I'm old and losing my marbles I will also hopefully forget my sort code and account number.

#10 Bonzo

Smugness and mocking is normal behaviour for many that post on here. Trouble is that those posters don't realise how these scams work.
For example. Many people have played some form of euro lottery in the past by paying a regular subscription to a company which enters the numbers on a syndicate type basis. I don’t know whether any of the above remember these schemes. Scammers use these lists to approach former players stating that previous winnings were re-invested into the Spanish lottery and now they have won a sizable amount of cash. However a small administration fee is required to cover legal costs or similar. Scammers don't ask for large amounts of money up front. It is usually small amounts to cover this, then to cover that. Once the victim starts paying, in their minds they have to see it through because their first thought is that they don't want to lose the money they have already paid. It takes a while for them to realise they have been scammed.
There are gullible and desperate people out there and these are the ones most likely to fall for this type of scam.
I have never received one of these letters but a family member who is always entering competitions, lottery or similar has had a few.

#13 You're right. I don't have a basic grasp of the English language. Silly me.

Having worked for the Gambling Commission for 2 years I can categorically state that it's not mainly the elderly who fall for these scams.

#17
Since you have the statistics at your fingertips (or committed to memory), perhaps you could tell us the average age, income and savings of people who do succumb?

#18 did I say that I knew the figures? No. I just know that the majority of cases I had dealings with were not those reported by the elderly.

15 - Aw they got you eh! Shame.

#7:

In my experience, the majority of "the elderly" are far more aware of what is going on around them than many younger people.