A colleague of mine, whilst messing about online saw these ads for entering a green card lottery, so he did but he didn’t pay for it - cost was $25. A few weeks later he has been called a couple of times by someone in the States, asking him to pay for it. He said it sounded legitimate - the guy had an American accent, told him all the details of the company that was doing it etc. My colleague refused to give his visa card number though.
The whole thing seemed like a scam to me - but if it is, then why would someone waste good money calling a mobile phone in NZ?
There is only one green card lottery, it is free to enter and is run by the UC CIS (or the state department, not sure). It is incredibly easy to enter (I believe it’s just a white piece of paper with your details on it mailed to an address, no application form, nothing). However, that doesn’t stop certain less-than-honest companies from charging you to do this for you. Essentially you fill out their form, pay them money, and they’ll generate that entry for you and mail it to the government.
Err I just read over my link and noticed that they now have digital entry and require a photograph. This wasn’t the case a few years ago, I guess it changed.