RALEIGH – The N.C. Education Lottery is warning players to buy lottery tickets only from authorized lottery retailers to avoid a recent scam involving scratch-off tickets altered to appear as a “winning ticket.”

In the scam, non-winning scratch-off tickets are altered to make them appear to have matching numbers that win a prize. The altered ticket is then sold, usually at a discount, to players who find out they were scammed when they attempt to claim the prize.

As of Friday, the lottery had received four reports of altered tickets at its offices across the state. The victims are those who buy the altered tickets.

“You can easily avoid this scam by only buying an unscratched lottery ticket from an authorized lottery retailer,” said Mark Michalko, executive director of the lottery. “Your first tip that someone is trying to scam you is when they offer to sell their prize-winning ticket at a discount with some made-up story about why they can’t claim the prize they won.”

Additional ways that consumers can protect themselves from scams like this include:

• Never pay anyone for a “winning ticket.”

• Don’t believe someone who claims he can’t claim a prize because he is from out of state or is not a U.S. citizen. People from other states and other countries can claim lottery prizes in North Carolina as long as they have proper identification.

The lottery’s security team ensures the integrity of lottery games and can investigate when, where and who purchased tickets. Anyone involved in lottery scams could be subject to criminal charges.

Players who have questions about lottery games can call toll free at 877-962-7529. Anyone with a security issue can call the Security Hotline toll-free at 888-732-6235.

The N.C. lottery keeps information about lottery scams in a section of its website, https://www.nclottery.com/CorporateSocialResponsibility_Security.