'Spam' Email Turns Out To Be True, Nets Michigan Woman Absolute Fortune

Laura Spears only realized she’d scored a $3 million prize in the Michigan Lottery by chance.

An email informing Spears of her astonishing Mega Millions win in the Dec. 31 draw went into the spam folder of her account. She only found out about the windfall days later while searching for another missing message.

“I couldn’t believe what I was reading, so I logged in to my Lottery account to confirm the message in the email,” Spears, who lives in Oakland County, said in a Michigan Lottery news release .

“It’s all still so shocking to me that I really won $3 million,” added Spears, 55, who bought her winning ticket online.

She said she plans to retire and share the winnings with family. “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’ story is the latest lottery happy ending to go viral.

Last year, a Massachusetts woman still collected her $1 million winnings even after tossing out the ticket. And a Tennessee man found his missing $1 million-winning entry in the blustery parking lot where he dropped it .