The woman — who asked to remain anonymous — said someone claiming to be a lottery winner named Mavis Wanczyk messaged her and said she wanted to share her winnings with a few lucky people. Wanczyk is a real lottery winner who, in 2017, won what was at the time the largest jackpot in U.S. history.
“Saying that she wanted to give me a million dollars and a car, a brand-new vehicle,” the woman said about the encounter.
However, there was a catch. The scammer told the woman she needed to pay fees in order to obtain her share of the prize. In this case, they wanted fees paid in Apple gift cards. Scammers even sent her what appeared to be an AI photo of Wanczyk holding her ID as proof she was real.
Unfortunately, the woman’s experience with scammers made her suspicious. She told WFTV 9 News that she had already lost more than $30,000 to an online scammer after she was contacted by someone on Facebook who claimed they were in need.
Despite her experience, she still struggled to accept that this new series of messages was a scam, only believing it after Action 9’s investigators convinced her it wasn’t real.
How the scam works
According to AARP, consumers lost $145 million to prize scams in 2024, though many cases go unreported. The scam often unfolds on social media, via calls, emails or direct messages and victims are told they won a sweepstakes, lottery or another prize.
But there’s always a catch. According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), scammers ask victims for money or to give them access to their account information in order to claim the prize. What happens next is simple: scammers take the money and give you nothing. The prize never existed.
The FTC says there are three signs of a prize scam:
- If you have to pay to get your prize: real prizes are free, so if someone tells you that there’s a fee or “taxes” connected to it, then you’re being scammed.
- If you’re told you have to pay to increase your odds of winning: this is illegal. Real sweepstakes are free, and winning is by chance.
- If you have to give your financial or personal information: credit card numbers, bank accounts or other personal information are never needed in order to claim a prize.
Oftentimes scammers will try to look “official” in order to convince victims they are legitimate. In prize scams, they often pretend to be from real government-supervised lotteries, or they pretend to be lottery winners themselves.
