Email inbox spam folders may be a muddy realm, full of messages promising enormous riches that are sadly too good to be true and should be avoided at all costs. One American lady, on the other hand, discovered that sorting through your trash mails every now and again might be beneficial.

Laura Spears was unaware that an email informing her that she had won a lottery win of $3 million (£2.5 million) had been sent to her spam box.

Originally from Oakland County in Michigan, the 55-year-old purchased a Mega Millions ticket on the Michigan Lottery website for a play scheduled for December 31, 2017. She correctly matched five numbers to win $1 million (£740,000), and she was able to double her winnings by three since she had purchased a “Megaplier” ticket.

“I noticed a Facebook advertisement stating that the Mega Millions jackpot was approaching a significant amount, so I logged into my account and purchased a ticket,” Ms Spears stated. ” The next day, I was seeking for an email from someone that had gone missing. I searched the junk folder on my email account and found nothing.”

“It was at that point that I received an email from the lottery stating that I had won a reward.  My jaw dropped as I read the notification in the email, and I immediately signed into my lottery account to authenticate what I was reading. It’s still a complete shock to me that I really won $3 million.”

In a statement released last week, she said that she intends to share her gains with her family and to retire early as a result of her victory at lottery headquarters.

Ms Spears said that she would make a point of checking her spam folder on a regular basis.

“I have absolutely added the Michigan Lottery to my safe senders list in the event that I am fortunate enough to get another email claiming a large win,” she stated.