Winning the lottery is a dream come true. But you have to play to win.
That’s something Veronica Saunders didn’t do. So when she was clicking through her emails and deleting out all of the junk, one message caught her attention.
It read: “Congratulations. Your email was selected in Powerball lottery draw with the sum of one point five million dollars,” Saunders, of Philadelphia, told NBC10 Responds.
The email went on to ask for her name, address, and phone number. She sensed something wasn’t right and forwarded the email to NBC10 Responds.
We contacted the Multi-State Lottery Association which runs Powerball, which said “MUSL will never initiate contact with an individual via email, phone, text or social media regarding a prize or with a request for personal or financial information."
The association says that if you give up personal information to a scam email, report the incident to local police and file a complaint with your state’s attorney general.
NBC10 Responds also looked into the sender’s email address. It shows a “sc.edu” email domain, which belongs to the University of South Carolina.
NBC10 Responds
Have a consumer complaint? Call 215-201-5310
The university told NBC10 Responds it was not aware of its email domain being used in this inappropriate manner and the school has "contacted the proper channels to address this issue."
As for Saunders, she didn’t win the lottery. But she didn’t lost any money, either.
“I know that there's people out there that are wicked. You know, they're out there to scam you,” said Saunders.
If you lost money to a scam and want to contact your state attorney general, here are their websites and contact information in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
