Many of us have had an email, letter or phone call telling us, in an overly excited manner, how we have just won an incredible prize and sometimes these messages often enter our computer screens or telephones when we haven’t even entered a competition or prize draw. However, these carefully placed messages are often (but not always) the result of a competition scam.

These scams frequently ask for us to send over bank details or ‘just send a £5 check to receive your fantastic prize’. Unfortunately many people believe that the prize is actually there and that it will be sent once you have replied with a ‘little admin fee’. These scams are thought up and distributed throughout the country to exploit people.

Paying the Price

A large percentage of these scams ask the competition winner to send money, hand over bank details or ring an expensive phone line. Whether you believe that the company that have got in contact with you are a legitimate trading organisation or not, you should always research and conclude the status of the company before sending over personal details or payment. You can easily enter the name of the company into a search engine to see if it is on the web. If the company is not on the web you can be (almost) certain that the company has been made up to fulfil the scam, as most legitimate companies nowadays have some sort of website or contact address. If you are a frequent comping enthusiast, check your records to make sure you actually entered the competition before going any further. Many people enter so many competitions that they often reply to competitions they have not entered.

Acting Quickly

It is essential to warn others and expose the scam as soon as you realise the competition is not legitimate. There are many websites that are specifically created to expose competition scams and who try and investigate possible scams. Another effective way of exposing these scams is to post them on website forums, that way people are informed of these exploits quickly. Unfortunately, in many cases, if you have sent your money or replied to a phone-in scam the chances of receiving a refund are slim, as most competition scams shut down the competition and move on before anyone realises they have been exploited. However, it may be worth contacting a national scam investigation agencies (there are many on the web) and explaining your situation to them. They may be willing to investigate and try to uncover the culprits.

Contacting a scam agency is probably the first step you should take as they can investigate immediately and try to target the people involved in the scam and attempt to shut down before others are exploited. Having done this you should then try to get the word out about the scam by posting on blogs and forums.

People each year are unfortunately drawn to these fake competitions that promise large sums of money or fantastic prizes and that is why the only way to prevent these exploitative scams is to identify what is real and what is a legitimate competition. So before you send out any money or hand out personal details ensure that you are replying to a genuine competition.