A warning has been issued over scam letters which have been sent to Norfolk addresses claiming to be from the 'International FIFA World Cup Online Lottery'.

Norfolk County Council Trading Standards has confirmed that the letters are a scam and there is no such lottery or prize.

The letter states: 'The programme was designed and promoted by European lottery, Loteria El Gordo and Commonwealth Bank of Australia and America, to promote the 2022 Qatar FIFA World Cup and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic games which is to be hosted by Japan respectively.'

They warn that anyone who makes contact via the details supplied in the letter will be persuaded to part with personal details and money as part of an 'upfront processing fee'.

The advice is to not respond to the letters any to destroy them.

Norfolk County Council Trading Standards has given out the following simple steps to avoid lottery scams:

• If you haven't entered a lottery then you can't have won it. Never respond to unexpected communications.

• Official lotteries in other countries operate in much the same way as the UK's National Lotto. No official lotteries that we know of contact people to tell them of their win.

• We don't know of any official lottery operators who ask for fees to collect winnings. Any request for a fee payment is a good indication that someone is trying to scam you.

• Never disclose your bank details or pay fees in advance to claim a lottery win.

• If they've provided an email address to respond to, be very suspicious of addresses such as @hotmail(dot)com or @yahoo(dot)com or numbers beginning with 07 because these are free to get hold of.

• Genuine lotteries thrive on publicity. If they ask you to keep your win a secret, it's likely to be a scam.

• Many examples of lottery scam letters have bad spelling and grammar – see this as a warning that fraudsters are at work.