Lottery scam quick guide: it's a scam if...

  • you win any lottery where you didn't buy a ticket! It's really that easy! It's not just too good to be true: it's bait in a trap!
  • you receive a generous grant out of the blue. Sadly (but not surprisingly) there aren't any benevolent people regularly throwing around millions of pounds/dollars/euros to randomly chosen people. This is just the lottery scam without the ticket.
  • they send you partial payment in the form of a cheque, money order, or direct bank transfer and want you to pay them fees out of that money. They're playing you for a sucker: cheques are frequently forged, and direct transfers made by compromising some poor schmuck's online banking service. You'll wind up a victim of fraud, or a party to it.
  • they want you to send them any money of any sort for any reason. They might try to say there are courier fees or taxes to cover. They're lying. Call their bluff and tell them to take the fees out themselves -- they'll never ever agree, because they can't defraud you unless money is making the reverse trip from you to them somehow.

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

CONGRATULATIONS:YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS EMERGED AS A WINNER IN THIS LOTTERY PROMO

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Microsoft Promotion Team <[redacted]>
Reply-To: microsoftworld_award06@yahoo.co.uk
Date: 28-Nov-2006 21:16
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS:YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS EMERGED AS A WINNER IN THIS LOTTERY PROMO
To: ideceive@gmail.com



Microsoft Award Team
20 Craven Park, Harlesden
London NW10
United Kingdom
Ref: BTD/968/05
Batch: 409978E


Dear Lucky Winner,

                  WINNING NOTIFICATION
The prestigious Micrsoft and aol  has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the  year 2006 anniversary we rolled out over #10,000.000.00 (Ten million Great Britain Pounds) for our end of year Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.
The selection was made through a computer draw system attaching personalised email addresses to ticket numbers. If you ignore this, you will regret it later. Microsoft and AOL are now the largest Internet companies and in an effort to make sure that Internet Explorer remains the most widely used program, Microsoft and Aol are running an e-mail beta test.

Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 008795727498 with serial numbers BTD/9080648302/06 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-25-39-40-47(20) which subsequently won you #1,000,000.00 (One million  Great Britain Pounds)  as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw. You have therefore won the entire winning sum of #1,000, 000.00 (One million Great Britain Pounds). The draws registered as Draw number one was conducted in Brockley, London United Kingdom on the 31th of August 2006. These Draws are commemorative and as such special.

Please be informed by this winning notification,to file your claims,you are to make contact with your designated agent who shall by duty guide you through the process to facilitate the release of your prize.To file for your claim Please Contact your fiduciary agent

Mr George Simmons
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Email: microsoftworld_award06@yahoo.co.uk
Phone:+447011129655
Fax:    +447092870193

You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications: Your Name (in Full), Country, Ticket Numbers, Batch Number, Serial Number,Lucky Numbers as indicated in this winning Notification and Phone numbers.Thank you for being part of this promotional award program.

Our special thanks and gratitude to Bill Gates and his associates.We wish you the
best of luck as you spend your good fortune.Thank you for being part of our commemorative new year Anniversary Draws.

Sincerely,
Dr. Bryan McDonald
Microsoft Promotion Team

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have just received this wonderful
e-mail, but I dont need a million pounds so I will not reply, thanks anyway.martinskock@yahoo.co.uk This offer was from microsoft and aol,nice of them isn't it.

Anonymous said...

I have received 8 such emails regarding the winning of the lottery. But what I have found is that after replying to them, they make out the provision of money for themselves in the name of tax expense, courier expense and insurance, making the user threaten, and in the dual mode. When we say to cut off the money from the winned amount, they reply telling that its against their policies and rules, for money is not reductible. So this is a complete crime because the customers of the yahoo, gmail, hotmail,and so on that provide email facilities are cheated by those emails. And it is not worth for the reputations of the email providers. And how such black people are made the notification of the email ids, specially mine that was just recently made as new? So, the good concept of people about email from these websites may turn into unfaith. BE CAREFUL EMAIL USERS!