to be VERY suspicious of an email telling me that I have won 800,000 pounds in the UK National Lottery ?

[Helena1964]

( I'm a new poster here.) I am usually very wary of too-good-to-be-true offers like this. But right now my circumstances are very difficult ( I've received my last unemployment check last week, and I'm trying not to panic. ) So perhaps it's making me desperate enough to want to believe it could be legitimate-yes, I know that scammers prey on people's desperation.
The email was headed UK National Lottery End of Year Promo. It said that my email address was one of three selected. I am a US citizen, living in the US, but subscribe to many UK websites (shamelessly Anglophilic ). I don't know a thing about how British lotteries work. They requested info such as nane, address, etc., but nothing suspiciously personal , such as bank account numbers. I plan on doing Internet research on them, but am humbly soliciting the wisdom of Mumsnetters on this matter.
If I don't post back immediately, I am not a troll-honest! I'm on a public computer and have to leave soon.

don't be silly

The only National british Lottery is called LOTTO.

They don't take email address.

Im afraid its a scam. sorry

it's a load of bollocks to put it bluntly.
The only way you can win a lottery is to enter it. if you don't remember entering it, you prpbably didn't therefore how can you have won anything?
PS the uk National Lottery is run by a company called Camelot.

scam!

We got the same e-mail a few months ago. Looked up the e-mail address and 'scams' in google and there it popped up.

It's a scam I'm afraid Sad but true. There are a LOT of them around.

Definitely a scam. If you didn't sign up to the Lotto online ticket service and you didn't buy a ticket, you haven't won anything. Sorry, would be nice though wouldn't it.

Message withdrawn

There are no such things as lotteries by email.

And only 800,000.

Blimey, I get them telling me that I´ve won millions!

I can´t believe that people really think that email addresses are magically entered into a lottery-by the lottery fairies?[hmm9

Most definitely a scam. To win a lottery you have to enter it in the first place and pay the fee, you then get a ticket.

UK Lottery official website - links to Terms and Conditions. Near the bottom of that page you will find the official contact details - there is an e-mail address.

Thanks to everyone for warning me. I think I really knew, deep down, that it was a scam, but the panicky, unemployed part of me led me to lose my senses, for a brief moment. Thanks for the bracing back-to-reality slap in the face-I really needed it! Now that I've just accomplished the achievement of making a fool of myself on my first ever post to Mumsnet, I will crimson facedly shuffle off, and vengefully press the "Report" button in my email box.

nah, that'snot making a fool of yourself. it's a sensible question.

You think that's making a fool out of yourself? That's nothing

Sorry to hear your finances are up the spout though.