I got a message saying I won a lottery I never entered — is this always a scam?

This scam typically arrives as an unsolicited email, text, or social media message announcing that you've won a large cash prize, often citing a well-known lottery name or a foreign national lottery you have no memory of entering. The message usually includes official-looking letterhead, fake reference numbers, and the name of a supposed 'claims agent' or lawyer handling your winnings.

The defining feature of this scam is the eventual request for money from you before your 'winnings' can be released — described as taxes, a processing fee, a currency conversion charge, or insurance for shipping a prize. In every legitimate lottery, taxes on winnings (where applicable) are either withheld automatically before payment or paid separately by the winner directly to the tax authority after receiving funds — a real lottery organization never asks winners to wire money upfront to unlock a prize.

Scammers running this operation often follow up any payment with a new, larger 'fee' required to complete the process, extracting as much money as possible before the victim realizes no prize will ever arrive. Because you cannot win a lottery you never entered, and legitimate lotteries do not contact winners this way, any message of this kind should be treated as fraudulent from the outset, regardless of how official it looks.