Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
There are affiliate links on this page.
Read our disclosure policy to learn more.
Have you just received an email from the "UK Online Lottery"? Before you plan your trip to Disney World, you might want to know that there is NO "UK Online Lottery" And the names in the email ("Joy May", "Joan Clack") are equally fictitious. Below is an actual scam email purporting to be from the "UK Online Lottery" Note that the real UK lottery is called "The National Lottery Commission" and is operated by the Camelot Group plc. And they never email winners.
Note the usual clues to an obvious fraud that we have highlighted in the letter; keep confidential, selected by a random computer lottery of email addresses, use of free hotmail/yahoo email accounts, terrible spelling, punctuation and grammar, etc.
Also see these pages:
From: lottery32@comcast.net
Subject: Ticket Number: 56475600545188
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2007 08:24:03 +0000
UK-ONLINE-LOTTERY Headquarters:
Customer ServiceRef: UK/9420X2/68
Batch: 074/05/ZY369# 13 Beach Pkw,Princess Dolly Carlin Towers
Manchester,United Kingdom.WINNING NOTIFICATION
We happily announce to you the draw of the UK-ONLINE-LOTTERY International programs held on the (20th of February 2007) in MANCHESTER, UK. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 56475600545188 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 U.500,000 ( Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) in cash credited to file ktu/9023118308/03.
This is from a total cash prize of US $Five MILLION USD , shared among the first Ten (10) lucky winners in this category. All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 companies websites.
This promotion takes place annually, Please note that your lucky winning category # :two(2) falls within our West African booklet representative office in Africa from the five booklet reps.(london,sydney,seoul,lagos,athlanta) as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this, your US$500 000 ( 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 her. 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 fudiciary agent in charge of category two(2) winners:
MRS JOY MAY
Email: joymay_fiduciaryagent@yahoo.fr
To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please quote your full names,y our country, your private Telephone and fax number, your reference/batch numbers etc in any correspondences with us or our designated agent.
Please do fill this form for more verifications
PERSONAL DATA
FULL NAMES: _________________________________
GENDER______________________________________
DATE OF BIRTH:________________________________
NATIONALITY: ________________________________
COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE: _______________________________________________
MARITAL STATUS: ______________________________
HOME ADDRESS: ________________________________
OFFICE ADDRESS: _______________________________
TELEPHONE NUMBER:_________________________________________________
FAX NUMBER: ____________________________________
OCCUPATION: ____________________________________
POSITION HELD: ___________________________________
TICKET NUMBER: __________________________________
EMAIL ADDRESS:__________________________________.
Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program.
Thank you for being part of our promotional lottery program.
Sincerely
JOAN CLACK
UK Online Web Lottery Co-ordinator
The Free lottery promo Awards is proudly sponsored by the Microsoft Corporation, the Intel Group,Toshiba,Dell Computers, Mckintosh and a conglomeration of other international IT companies.
The Free lottery internet draw is held quarterly every year and is so organized to encourage the use of the internet and computers worldwide. We are proud to say that over 200 Million Euros are won annually in more than 150 countries worldwide. We also encourage you to visit our website at www.freelotto.com and take your chance to play and become part of our daily winners.
Millions are won on a daily basis on one of the world's most famous The Free lottery
Promo.
WARNING!!!
ANY MAIL RECIEVED OF THIS SUCH WITH ANY OTHER TRADE MARK OR ADDRESS SHOULD BE FOWARDED TO THIS BOX IMMEDIATELY, THIS WILL HELP US TO FIGHT SCAM AND LOTTERY IMPOSTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ANTICIPATED CO-OPERATION .
the return email addresses are free Yahoo email accounts,
The recipient "won" without buying a ticket (so where does the money come from?)
"For security reasons" you're not allowed to talk to anyone about it (especially the police or consumerfraudreporting.org!) - which ought to be odd since lotteries thrive on publicity!
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
***