Lottery Officials Warn Of Scams In New York

Officials with one of the biggest Lotteries in the state are warning residents of possible scams using the lottery's name.

As the jackpots grow bigger and bigger it seems more and more people are trying to scam people using the name of one of the biggest lotteries in the country.

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Officials with the Mega Millions are warning players of potential scams that are trying to steal personal information.

Officials are warning about interaction with emails that claim you are a "Big Winner" or that you have won a secondary prize after a big drawing. This past Friday there were two jackpot winners and those tickets will share a prize of over $400 million dollars.

Now officials are warning about possible scams that come after a big payout. One of the scams that officials have had their eye on all year long is one that involves WhatsApp that offers users a portion of a grand prize. Another one involves scammers calling people telling them they won a prize and they need their give out their personal info to claim the prize.

According to the Mega Millions website, there is only one way to win the contest.

Mega Millions warns consumers that there are no random prizes awarded anywhere in the world simply on the basis of phone numbers or email addresses. Our game is sold only in the United States and only by our participating lotteries. The only way to win Mega Millions is to first purchase a ticket  if you haven’t purchased a ticket, you haven’t won. And there is never a fee to claim a real lottery prize.

If you do get a message online or a phone call, officials tell you to ignore them.