The mail announces your eligibility for a contest or says you may have won a fabulous prize, but you'll need to pay, at the very least, for a 900 phone number and shipping and handling, before you can enter the contest or collect the prize. Toss any solicitation that asks for money up front. Foreign Lotteries U.S. law prohibits the cross-border sale or purchase of lottery tickets by phone or mail. It's that simple. However, if you've ever bought a foreign lottery ticket, you will receive more solicitations for lotteries or foreign investments in your mail.
Fraudulent marketers buy and sell lists of people who have already fallen for scams.
You also may receive solicitations that refer to secret systems to make you a winner. You get solicitations in the mail for schemes that pay commissions for recruiting distributors, not for making sales. The solicitations usually ask new distributors to pay for high-priced products and claim that you'll make money from the sales of the distributors you've recruited. These are pyramid schemes. Second, only those at the very top make money, at least until the law catches up with them.