Lottery Scam

Every once in a while, I receive a forward from a relative or someone afraid of a new internet virus, or claiming that if you forward a message that a charity will get a dollar. These are almost always hoaxes. Then there are the more criminal Nigerian E-mail scams, where the sender claims to have some money to move, and needs your help. I usually just discard those as well. But today, I received a lottery hoax. I've copied the message below:

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Date: Tue, 02 Dec 2003 18:16:37 +0000 (GMT)
From: "internationallottouk1" Add to Address Book
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS!
To: internationallottouk1@telstra.com
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INTERNATIONAL LOTTO UK.
IL 9001 SANGRIHAM COURT,
ABINGER GROVE,
SE45TS.


FROM: THE DESK OF THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER,
INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARD DEPARTMENT,
REF:EE/EGS/16-DD2751144 AND BATCH NO:53/1014/NBM.

ATTENTION: Sir/Madam,
RE/AWARD NOTIFICATION

We are pleased to inform you of the announcement today, 2nd of DECEMBER, 2003,
of winners of THE INTERNATIONAL LOTTO PROGRAMS held on the 4TH NOVEMBER, 2003
as part of our END of the year bonanza.

You or your company, attached to ticket number 034-1416-4612-750, with serial
number 6521-11 drew the lucky numbers 31-51-22-24-39-43, and consequently won
the lottery in category B.

You have therefore been approved for a lump sum pay out of US$2,500,000 in cash
credited to file REF:EE/EGS/16-DD2751144

This is from total prize money of US$12,500,000.00 shared among 5 winners in
this category. All participants were selected through a computer balloting system
drawn from 96,000 names from Middle East, Asia, Africa, Canada, Europe and
North America and Oceania as part our International Promotions Program, which is
conducted annually.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Your fund is now deposited with EQUITY TRUST ENTERPRISES LIMITED , a security
House insured in your name. Due to the mix up of some numbers and names, we ask
that you keep this award strictly from public notice until your claim has been
processed and your money remitted to your account. This is part of our
security protocol to avoid double claiming or unscrupulous acts by participants of
this program.

We hope with a part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high
stakes US$1.3 billion International Lottery.

To begin your claim, please contact your claims agent;

MR. LAWRENCE SMITH
EQUITY TRUST ENTERPRISES LIMITED,
LONDON,
TEL/FAX:+447092013604
SATELLITE PHONE: +8821646685846.
EMAIL: lawrencesmith7@zwallet.com
lawrencesmith7@doramail.com

for due processing and remittance of your prize money to a designated account
of your choice.

Remember, you must contact your claims agent not later than 31st of DECEMBER,
2003. After this date, all funds will be returned as unclaimed. All
correspondences to MR.LAWRENCE SMITH, either by fax or email, should have this EMAIL sent
along with it and also, your FULL ADDRESS, YOUR COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE and your
EMAIL ADDRESS to which this email is sent, should be clearly and BOLDLY WRITTEN
IN YOUR RESPONSE with your claims agent.

NOTE: In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please remember
to quote your reference and batch numbers in every one of your correspondences
with your agent. Furthermore, should there be any change of your address, do
inform your claims agent as soon as possible.

Congratulations again from all our staff and thank you for being part of our
promotions program.

Sincerely,

CAROLINE JENSEN.
THE PROMOTIONS MANAGER,
THE INTERNATIONAL LOTTO uk.

N.B. Any breach of confidentiality on the part of the winners will result to
disqualification. Please do not reply to this mail. Contact your claims agent.






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Yeah, that seems pretty authentic. First red flag: I've never entered an international lottery. Ever. But somehow, I've won one!! Yeah me! Second red flag: They never used my name. Somehow, the lottery knows the e-mail address of the lottery winner, but they don't know my name. Hmmm... I'm still ecstatic that I won the lottery, but that's a head scratcher. Third red flag: I'm getting an e-mail about my winnings. Hmmm.... why wouldn't they call me on the phone? Oh well, at least they notified me right! That was downright gracious of the lottery to do that. Uh-oh, red flag number 4: I need to contact a collection agent. I would think that I would need to report to a lottery office. Not an agent. Especially an agent who is using e-mail addresses zWallet and DoraMail. Hmm.... the collection agent has an e-mail address at the Doraemon fan site. Yeah, that makes sense.

Okay people. I'm gonna say this once: You are not lucky!!! Life is unfair! Bad people are out there attempting to prey on naive people. When you receive an e-mail claiming that you have millions coming your way, throw it out. It is a hoax. If you don't believe, take at least two minutes to try to verify ANY information in the e-mail you received. Do a google search on hoaxes with the title of the e-mail. On my first search, the number one hit led to a warning site on internet scams. It specifically discussed this scam. The e-mail I received matches their example almost word for word. For dupes who follow up on this e-mail, the person at the e-mail address then attempts to get you to send your bank account number so they can "wire your winnings to the account". Whoops, they must have accidentally put a minus sign in front of those winnings, because your account is now mysteriously empty!! So even after all of my warnings, if you still think that somehow you are the exception, please, please, create a new and empty bank account before sending out the account number. I would hate to think that you lost your life savings over one of these stupid scams.

So the moral of the story is, don't believe everything you receive in your e-mail.