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 any name at "FREE LOTTO PROMO" saying you won their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Simon Lee" to collect your winnings? It is a scam. And don't get too excited if the names are different; the scammers make many versions of this scam! You can't help but see the contempt with which the scammers hold their victims: who would believe "Free Lotto Promo" at "Lottery Winners International"? You'd have to be many bricks short of a wall to find those names even remotely plausible.
It is actually a very simple scam. They claim you won a promotion, which is giving away millions of dollars based on a randomly selected email address. The scam is obvious: it's simply preposterous to think that any company would randomly give away money to encourage you to buy their product. That would be self-defeating.
Although the most important clue is that no legitimate lottery, and almost no legitimate sweepstakes or promotions will email a winner, there are many other signs that this is a fraud. We 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.
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. 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.
Using free email account: The scammer is writing to you from a FREE email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.). Don't you think a real organization would use its own email, its own domain and website? Wouldn't they want to promote that?
What are they promoting? No one promotes "world peace" or "use of the internet" by handing out millions to random strangers. And if they are promoting a product, then this must be the world's worst promotion, because no one has heard of it, outside of the email you just received.
Pay a fee to collect the prize: Nope, it is illegal for free sweepstakes and promotions to charge you ANYTHING! Of course, in a scam, that is the whole point: to get you to send money to the scammer.
It is a typical scam promotion sweepstakes winning notification. Also see these pages:
FREE LOTTO PROMO < autotime@cox.net > wrote:Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:18:12 -0700
From: FREE LOTTO PROMO < autotime@cox.net >
Subject: officially informing you
We are officially informing you of the result of the Lottery Winners International programs held on the 1st of January 2007 as part of our promotional programmes for the year 2007. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number 77007742781005-18721 with reference number 414-3721060 drew winning numbers 7-00-71-00-66-49 and credited to batch number 121cfc, which consequently won in the 1st category via our electronic ticket as stated above. You have therefore been approved for a pay out of 1,800,000.00 (One Million Eight Hundred Thousand Pounds).
For verification please fill the form below and forward it to our fiduciary agent the person of :Simon Lee
Email: agentleeofflpiinfo@yahoo.co.ukFULL NAME:.............
ADDRESS:.................
COUNTRY:.................
CITY:.......................
STATE:... ..................
ZIP CODE:.........
TEL:..............
HOME TEL:....................
ADDRESS:................... .
OCCUPATION:.................
AGE:.............
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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