Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
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Have you received an email from "Tommy Bob Smith" at "The E-Lottery Company" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to contact "the Fiduciary Agent at remittancebase@live.com" to collect your winnings? It is a scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners vian email (see footnote)! The scammers may change the names and details, but it is still a scam!
Below is the example of the fake email scam (the email is the scam, not any persons or companies named in the email) claiming to be from the "The E-Lottery Company".
Although the most important clue is that no legitimate lottery will ever email a winner, there are many other signs that this is a fraud. We may have highlighted some of these in the email below, not the least of which are:
Email address ballot: There is no such thing as a "computer ballot system" or "computer email draw". No one, not even Microsoft has a database of email addresses of the type or magnitude they suggest.
"No tickets were sold": You care to explain where the money comes from? Perhaps the lottery money fairy? Why would a lottery give away money to "email address randomly selected by a computer ballot draw system"? This is CLEARLY nonsense: you MUST, repeat MUST buy a ticket to have a chance of winning any lottery!
Terrible spelling, punctuation, syntax and grammar - Scammers apparently don't know how to use spell checkers. We assume they dropped out of school before that class. They use almost excessive and random CapItaLiZAtion. Names are usually in all capital letters for some reason known only to these illiterate criminals. They often can't even spell "February" or know that "22th" ought to be "22nd". These scammers usually write at the 3rd grade level. Being non-native English speakers, they also often get first names and surnames (last names reversed), so you will frequently see names like "Mr. SMITH JAMES.", instead of "Mr. James Smith", along with the peculiar usage of periods (full stops) and spaces or the lack thereof. Real lotteries also proofread their emails and look and read more professional.
Using free email account: The scammer is writing to you from a FREE email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Excite, AIM, Gmail, etc.). Don't you think a real organization would use it's own email, it's own domain and website?
Keep Confidential - Real lotteries THRIVE on publicity - they don't want you to keep anything secret - the publicity causes people to buy more tickets. there is NO risk of "double claiming" because they can validate where the ticket numbers were sold. The scammer want you to keep quiet because they don't want the police or ConsumerFraudreporting to hear about them! It should read: "For our own security, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential until we have finished scamming you!"
Email notification: NO REAL LOTTERY SENDS AN EMAIL TO NOTIFY WINNERS. Period. Full-stop. End of story. There mere fact ALONE that you received an email saying you won a lottery is proof that it is a scam.
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
THE E-LOTTERY COMPANY.
7 West End Avenue, Gatley,
Cheadle, Cheshire, SK8 4DR, UK.
Draw Date: 25-03-2008.
We happily announce to you the Draw (06/1099) of the E-Lottery online email promotion program held on 30th January, 2008.
All 10 winning e-mail addresses were randomly selected from a batch of 50,000,000 international emails. Your emails address emerged alongside 9 others as a category 2 winner in this year's Annual E-Lottery Draw. Consequently, you have therefore been approved for a total pay out of £546,480.00 (Five Hundred And Forty-Six Thousand, Four Hundred & Eighty British Pounds Sterling only).
The following particulars are attached to your lotto payment order: (i) Winning Numbers: 05 18 26 34 42 49 BB 08 (ii) Email ticket number; FL754/22/76 (iii) Lotto Code Number: FL09622UK (iv) Ref Number: L/07/736207147/UK
Above all, you are required to fill out the Claims Verification form below and send it to the Fiduciary Agent
1.Name............................
2.Address.........................
3.Age...............................
4.Sex...............................
5.Occupation....................
6.Country Of Resident.......
7.Nationality......................
8.Tel/Fax...........................
To claim your prize funds, you are required to come directly to our UK office for direct claim. If you have problems with coming to our office You can also employ the use of a courier service company to deliver your winning cheque to your home or office address.
You are required to state your chosen option of claim in your return e-mail, so we can assist you with the remittance of your winnings toyour designation.
Kindly contact our help line with the information below for claim assistance.
Please contact the Fiduciary Agent as soon as possible for the immediate release of your winnings:
FIDUCIARY AGENT:
EMAIL: remittancebase@live.com
N.B: Winnings not acknowledged and claimed within one week of notification will be void.
Regards,
Tommy Bob Smith
Promotion Manager,
The E-Lottery Company.
UK & Europe.
E-LOTTERY RESULT 2008
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
* Re: emails of winnings. We know of only ONE exception in the world to this rule - and if you bought a ticket from them, you would know it, and would used their safegaurds.
* Re: emails of winnings. We know of only ONE exception in the world to this rule - and if you bought a ticket from them, you would know it, and would not be questioning it.