Each year scams cause between £5bn and £10bn worth of loss to UK consumers in the form of uninvited emails, letters, telephone calls and even household visits. Among the most common scams are fake lotteries and prize draws. Criminals trick people with official looking documents or websites to send a processing or administration fee, pay postal or insurance costs or make a premium rate phone call. 

The archetypal scam victim is an elderly person living alone, so when we commissioned some research into the UK public’s knowledge and experience of prize draw scams, we assumed it would confirm that the older you are, the more likely you are to be scammed.

In fact, the opposite is true. The research, carried out with over 2000 people, actually found that young people are most vulnerable to prize draw scams. We’ve got some thoughts on why this might be, but it’s a shocker, isn’t it!

So why were we interested in prize draw scams at all? Because Prizeology is a prize promotions company. We run regulatory and legally compliant prize draws and, to be frank, prize draw scams damage our business and our industry. Obviously, we don’t want people to get scammed either, because it can be deeply distressing and you can lose a lot of money.

If you’d like a copy of the full report, you can get your download here.