Is an email claiming I have won an international lottery I did not enter real?

International lottery scam emails have been circulating for decades. They typically claim you have won a large prize in a lottery run in a foreign country and instruct you to contact a claims agent. When you do, you are asked to pay taxes, legal fees, or insurance before the prize can be released. Each payment generates a new fee requirement. The prize never exists. Real lotteries only contact winners who entered with a verifiable ticket — they do not email random addresses about unsolicited winnings, and they never require winners to pay fees upfront. If you receive such an email, delete it without responding. Responding confirms your email address is active and invites further contact.

The format endures because it filters efficiently: the implausible premise repels sceptical recipients and selects for the small minority willing to believe, who then justify the scammer's sustained attention. Once engaged, victims are moved through an escalating relationship with a 'claims agent' who mixes bureaucratic paperwork with warmth and encouragement, making each new fee feel like progress rather than loss. Elderly and isolated people are held in these correspondences for months and their details circulated on victim lists for other frauds. If someone you know mentions a foreign lottery win, treat it as a welfare matter, not a finance question — the correspondence itself is the trap.