Identification
There are several ways to recognize a fake lottery email:
- Unless someone has bought a ticket, they cannot have won a prize. There are no such things as "email" draws or any other lottery where "no tickets were sold". This is simply another invention by the scammer to make the victim believe that they have won.
- The scammer will ask the victim to pay a fee before they can receive their prize. All real lotteries simply subtract any fee and tax from the prize. It does not matter what they say this fee is for (courier charges, bank charges, various imaginary certificates — these are all made up by the scammer to get money out of their victim).
- Scam lottery emails will nearly always come from free email accounts such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, Live, MSN, Gmail etc.
Most email lottery scams are a type of advance fee fraud. A typical scam email will read like this:
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PRIME LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL
Customer Service
Ref:ABC/34085746305872/34
Batch: 293/34/3473 WINNING NOTIFICATION:
WINNING NOTIFICATION: We happily announce to you the draw of the UK-LOTTO Sweepstake Lottery International programs held on the 27th of March, 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 564 75600545188 with Serial number 5368/02 drew the lucky numbers: 19-6-26-17-35-7, which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category. You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of US$2,500,000.00 (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars)in cash credited to file ktu/9023118308/03.This is from a total cash prize of U.S $ 2.5 Million dollars, shared amongst the first nine (9) luckywinners in this category. All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 companies. This promotion takes place annually. Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our European booklet representative office in Europe as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this, your U.S$2,500,000.00 (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) would be released to you by our payment office in Europe. Our European agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact him. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements. Please be warned. To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary agent: Mr Richard Diwar Email:dywar2@example.com To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please quote your reference/batch numbers in any correspondence with us or our designated agent. Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program. Thank you for being part of our promotional lottery program. Sincerely, |
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