Email Lottery Scams-10 Ways To Spot A Scam!

nealallen

*For obvious reasons the address has been edited out*

Microsoft Award Team
[Address edited out]
[Address edited out]
United Kingdom
Ref: BTD/969/07
Batch: 59978ED
Dear Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION
The prestigious Micrsoft and aol has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the new year 2007 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.
Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 0087955827499 with serial numbers BTD/0080648302/07 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-30-39-40-47(31) which subsequently won you £1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds) as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw.
To file for your claim Please Contact your fiduciary agent
Mr [name edited out]
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Email: [impossibly long email address - edited out] @yahoo.co.uk
Phone:+44-[phone number edited out]
Fax: +44-[phone number edited out]
You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:
Your Full Names
Country
Occupation
Age
Ticket Numbers
Batch Number
as indicated in this winning Notification and Phone numbers.
Congratulations from the Staffs & Members of the interative Lotteries Board Commission ;
Sincerely,
Dr. [name edited out] Microsoft Promotion Team

So how can you tell this is a fake email?

1. It’s full of spelling mistakes. For example, they’ve misspelled Microsoft and put AOL in lowercase (it’s always upper case on their website). In fact, the first sentence of the email contains four typos. Be wary of emails that contain typos.
2. Despite claiming to come from Microsoft and AOL, the reply email address is on yahoo.co.uk. Be wary of emails that don’t match the organisation that claims to send the email, especially long or obscure addresses or addresses from free email providers.
3. The addresses don’t match the companies behind this alleged lottery. You’ll have to take my word for this since I edited them out but a quick check on BT.com’s on-line phone book can confirm a company’s real address. If someone makes big claims, they need big proof - check what they say.
4. It creates an artificial sense of urgency - to “avoid unnecessary delays and complications.” Don’t think! Give us your information! Now! If someone asks you to act urgently, ask yourself if they are trying to stop you thinking too much.
5. It asks you to give them personal information. Initially, it’s pretty harmless- name, country and occupation; but once they’ve got you on the hook they’ll start asking for things like birthdays, bank account details, mother’s maiden name etc. All under the pretence of ‘verifying your identity’ but in fact for the purpose of emptying your bank account. Be extremely wary of giving away personal information.
6. Surreal punctuation and capitalisation. The final sentence ends in a semi-colon and half the words are capitalised but in an inconsistent way. If they have £10m to give away, they can hire someone who knows how to write properly.
7. Grandiose language and officialese. They want you to think this is important and official so they use inflated language, such as fiduciary agent and lengthy ticket numbers, reference numbers and batch numbers to give it a sense of importance. Be wary of emails that try to baffle brains with !!!!!!!!.
8. There’s no evidence that Microsoft or AOL are running a lottery which involves giving away money to people at random. You can check this yourself by going to Microsoft’s home page or AOL’s. If companies run prize competitions they want a lot of publicity (otherwise, why give away millions of pounds?). Check that the lottery really exists.
9. There’s no good reason for the prize to exist. The email says “Sweepstakes marking the new year 2007 anniversary.” Does that sound like any kind of lottery or competition or prize that you’ve seen before? Use your common sense.
10. You didn’t buy a ticket or enter a competition. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Dave_Brooker

nealallen wrote: »

So how can you tell this is a fake email?

1 easy way to spot a scam:

Did you buy a ticket?

If no you cannot possibly have won.

ManAtHome

11. Micro$oft using a yahoo email address...

and as Dave said - it's an email offering you money.

nealallen

Dave_Brooker wrote: »

1 easy way to spot a scam:

Did you buy a ticket?

If no you cannot possibly have won.

1. Is says that in the post "Use your common sense.
2. You didn’t buy a ticket or enter a competition.

Shame we aint all as clued up as you

uktim29

nealallen wrote: »

1. Is says that in the post "Use your common sense.
2. You didn’t buy a ticket or enter a competition.

Shame we aint all as clued up as you

I don't think you need to be clued up to spot a scam email. Like dave says it is a bit obvious. Clued up (being more knowledgable than average) would indicate only a minority would be aware not to fall for an email like that which I don't thinks the case.

And if people do fall for that (using your own words "common sense") they won't have any so posting on here probably won't help them either.

peter_the_piper

The scammers send out so many that eventually they will get to someone who is both naive and greedy, these are blinded by the £ signs. When they do the cash register starts to ring.