Fakenham police warning over £720,000 lottery scam

Bogus letters might claim you’ve won a fortune. But today officers said it was a con trick aimed at vulnerable people.

A number of reports have been received from residents who have received letters claiming to be from the People’s International Postcode Lottery in recent weeks.

They claim the recipient has won a sum of money - usually hundreds of thousands of pounds - after their winning number, or numbers, were drawn.

Victims are advised to keep their ‘winning information’ confidential until the claim has been processed and then asked to call a phone number and pay a processing fee to claim the money.

PC Joanne Porter, from Fakenham Police Station, said: “We can confirm that this letter is not genuine and is an attempt to prey on vulnerable people and scam them out of their money.

“We would ask residents to be on the lookout for a letter of this nature and should anyone receive any correspondence that arouses suspicion, we would urge them not to respond to it and to report it to us instead. Our mantra when it comes to this type of fraud is that if it looks too good to be true then it probably is.”

Anyone who may have received such a letter should report it to Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040.

More information on how to recognise and help protect yourself from lottery fraud can be found here on the Action Fraud website.