Woman Finds $3 Million Jackpot in Spam Folder While Looking for Another Email

Laura Spears realised she had won the Mega Millions Lottery only after stumbling upon an email in her spam folder.

Laura Spears. 

(Photo Courtesy: Google Images) 

The spam folder is like the dirty sock drawer of your email account – you don't check it unless it's overflowing. Laura Spears, a 55-year-old woman, was in for a shock when she came across an email from the organisers of a lottery worth 3 million dollars.

"I was looking for a missing email from someone, so I checked the spam folder in my email account. That’s when I saw an email from the lottery saying I had won a prize," she said.

According to the organisers, Laura had won the Michigan Lottery's Mega Millions on New Year's Eve. But she stumbled upon her winning email only much later. She had, in fact, forgotten to check the winning numbers at the time of their announcement. So to get the reward, Laura had to log into her online lottery account.

"I couldn't believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my lottery account to confirm the message in the email. It's all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million!"

The lottery had advertised only a $1 million prize, but she had opted to pay an extra $1 to earn the "megapiler" upgrade, which promised her three times her winnings.

Later, she made some changes to her inbox settings. "I definitely added the Michigan Lottery to my safe senders list just in case I ever get lucky enough to receive another email about a huge prize," Spears said.

The Mega Millions lottery competition began in 2002, and as with all lotteries, the rules have been changed over the years to reduce the chances of winning. This has led to higher prize winnings.

Spears and her family are now looking forward to her early retirement, she said.

(With inputs from News18.)