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 14, 2006

Coupon No.PBL2348974321

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: [redacted]@bellsouth.net <[redacted]@bellsouth.net >
Date: 14-Nov-2006 02:22
Subject: Coupon No.PBL2348974321
To: [redacted]@nationalprogramme.co.uk

                            NATIONAL PROGRAMME UK
                           POWERBALL- EMAIL-GAME 2006

Dear Winner,

NOTICE OF CONSOLATION PRIZE WINNING.

We are pleased to notify you the draw (#506) of the E-LOTTERY SYSTEM, Online Sweepstakes International Lottery Program held on 10th ofNovember 2006.Participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from a pool of  over 25,000 names of distinguished professionals drawn from Europe, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, Middle-East, parts of Africa, and North & South America as part of our international promotions programmed conducted annually to encourage prospective overseas individuals/companies entries.

Your email ID identified with Coupon No.PBL2348974321 and was selected by Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) with entries from the 50,000 different email addresses enrolled for the Power Ball Lotto- E-game Programmed.

Your e-mail I.D was included among the 50,000 different email addresses submitted, and has won you the lottery in the 2ND category, you have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay of 500,000.00 British Pounds (GBP) in accredited to file Ref: PBL/CN/6654/CP.

To claim your price, you will have to fill the form below for verification by your claims agent:

NAME:....................................
AGE:.......................................
SEX:......................................
ADDRESS:..............................
EMAIL:....................................
PHONE:.................................
OCCUPATION:.........................
COMPANY:..............................
COUNTRY:..............................
Prize Ref No............................

Lottery Claims Officer:
Name: Mr. Paul Goya
Email; agent.paulgoya@yahoo.ie
Tel: +44 704-011-3854

Congratulations once again from all our staffs on your consolation prize
winning, we hope you will partake in our forth coming Power ball Lotto-
Email-games.

Mrs. Roseline Donald,
(Lottery Coordinator)

1 comment:

IVIilitarus said...

I Googled that coupon number and guess what I found ?

Looks like we're both winners.