Fake sweepstakes notice claiming the target has been selected as a winner and must pay a processing or customs fee to claim their prize — advance-fee prize fraud prohibited by FTC rules; no legitimate sweepstakes requires winners to pay any fee before receiving their prize.
sweepstakes-prize-claim-fee-phish
What this tier means
High-confidence threat indicator — phishing, impersonation, BEC, or scam pattern. Strong contributor to the trash decision.
How Gorganizer detects this
Fake sweepstakes notification claiming the target has been selected as a winner and must pay a processing fee, customs fee, or administrative fee before their prize can be released — advance-fee prize fraud. No legitimate sweepstakes requires winners to pay any fee before receiving their prize: this is explicitly prohibited by the FTC's Telemarketing Sales Rule (16 CFR 310.4(d)), state sweepstakes statutes (no purchase or payment necessary to win or claim), and by standard sweepstakes prize-fulfillment practice. The "selected as winner — pay processing/customs fee to claim prize" structure is the defining advance-fee pattern for prize fraud, whether the prize is cash, electronics, travel, or merchandise. Distinct from lottery-sweepstakes-prize-phish (lottery/cash prize narrative) and contest-prize-delivery-fee-phish (commercial contest physical prize delivery fee) — this targets the sweepstakes-selected-winner / processing-or-customs-fee / claim-your-prize pretext. Detection: sweepstakes winner/selected + pay processing fee/customs fee + claim your prize vocabulary + no List-Unsubscribe + no In-Reply-To + not protected sender. Trash score: +3. Source: GC1-R28; FTC prize promotion rules (16 CFR 310.4); FTC sweepstakes fraud consumer advisory 2025; FBI IC3 prize scam alert; BBB sweepstakes advance-fee fraud report.
False-positive guard
Every signal in Gorganizer feeds a multi-module score — never a sole verdict. This is a threat-tier signal — it adds a strong contribution to the trash score. The full pipeline still requires convergence across multiple modules + a margin over the safety floor before deletion happens, and Gmail's trash (30-day recovery) is always used — never permanent delete.
About the scoring engine
Gorganizer's scoring engine emits 2,143+ signals across six modules — headers, sender, subject, body, attachments, and structural metadata. Every email is scored by every module independently; the final verdict requires multiple modules to agree and the trash score to beat the safety floor by a margin.
Sacred safety guards — never delete starred emails, replies, calendar invites, receipts/invoices, or attachments — apply unconditionally regardless of any signal.
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