GREENSBORO, NC — Not a day goes by without a call or email about a sweepstakes, a lottery complete with money orders and checks in the mail. Some of our viewers know it’s a scheme. Others are hoping the money is real and are asking us to check into it.

ANYTIME a lottery or sweepstakes asks you to pay fees and wire money back to them for your winnings, it is a scheme.

Last year, the U.S. Postal Service received more than 37,424 mail fraud complaints through the system. But get this, a Federal Trade Commission study shows about 92% of fraud victims *don’t* report the fraud.

“We’re very aggressive in going after these people. We actually have inspectors that we send over to Jamaica and Nigeria where the scams are coming from. We have our inspectors on the ground there assisting their local prosecutors in finding, arresting and prosecuting these people.”

Postal Inspectors Travel Overseas For Lottery Schemers