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 "Mrs. Margaret Johnson" at the "UK National Lottery - WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "B" WINNER ONLY" telling you that you won the a prize and to contact "Mr. Phil Smith"? It is a scam.
There are only two legal large lotteries in Britain, the National Lottery and the Monday Lottery, anyway, and they do NOT use email to notify winners. Below is a scam email actually received.
DO NOT reply to any emails you receive that claim you have won a lottery that you did not enter. They are frauds. You will lose your money. There is no "free lunch"; don't be foolish and believe a scam! We can not say it any more plainly: YOU WILL NOT BE NOTIFIED BY EMAIL BY ANY LEGITIMATE LOTTERY THAT YOU WON A PRIZE. If you do receive such an email, it IS a fraud, do not reply to it! If you DID reply to one, see this page to find out what happens next!
Other resources:
Also
In the UK, call the hotline at 020 7211 8111 to check or report lottery scams.
There are many other signs that this is a fraud that we have highlighted in the email below, typically including one or more of these:
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 random CapItaLiZAtion and often can't even spell "February" or know that "22th" ought to be "22nd". Real lotteries proofread their emails and use people who can write above the 3rd grade level.
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 its own email, its 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!
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.
Courier / delivery charges are high due to Hardcover insurance Policy - If you respond to them, you will usually receive an email telling you you must pay delivery charges. First, as we mentioned earlier, no winner would ever have to pay delivery charges in a real lottery, sweepstakes or promotion. Secondly, there is no such thing as "hardcover insurance policies" . Go search in Google and see if you can find a definition for it!
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "B" WINNER ONLY
Attn Lucky Winner,
We are pleased to inform you that you have emerged as a winner in the final annual draw of our Lottery International Programs. Your email address was selected by our Electronic Random Selection System (ERSS) from an exclusive list of 250,000,000 e-mail addresses of individual and corporate bodies generated from an internet resource database. No tickets were sold.
Your email address is identified with Batch Number: P2/0056/2008 and Ticket Number: PP 3812 /2008-05 in Category "B" and your claims portfolio is filled with Ref Number: KPL/09-002/JA.You are therefore advised to receive a cash prize of £1,500,000.00 (One Million, Five Hundred Thousand Great British
Pound) from the total payout.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Your prize award has been insured under a bonded depository policy with your e-mail address, and will be transferred to you upon meeting the claims requirements, statutory obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report.
To file for the processing of your prize sum payment, you are advised to contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "B" winners with the information below:
*************************************
Name: Mr. Phil Smith
E-mail: mrphil_smith2@yahoo.co.uk
*************************************
Endeavour to provide him with the following information in your contact with him.
Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Occupation:
NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence.
You are to keep all lotto information confidential, especially your reference and ticket numbers. This is important as a case of double claims will not be entertained.
Members of staff of affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this program. Furthermore, should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.
Yours Faithfully,
Mrs. Margaret Johnson
Lottery Co-ordinator.
PRIVACY STATEMENT
1. Personal and winning data provided by winners to THIS PROMO remains known ONLY to the winner and INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONAL PROGRAMS ORGANISATION.
2a. all e-mail addresses, contact information, photographs and/or personal data of winners SHALL NOT be published or disclosed on ANY public or in any other public place or via any medium accessible to the public.
2b. all e-mail addresses, contact information, photographs and/or personal data of winners SHALL NOT be disclosed to or made available to any third party or agent outside the claims office.
3. All e-mail addresses, contact information and/or personal data of winners are kept in an isolated database server protected from any external access using SSL locking on 6th level binary phase. This data is made accessible ONLY to UK NATIONAL LOTTERY staff and authorized agents directly involved with the processing of winners claims.
4. Winners are advised to keep their winning information away from public knowledge, in order to avoid any double claims, impersonation or misrepresentation during the claims processing.
UK NATIONAL LOTTERY will not be liable for any misplaced claims as a owing to your negligence or publishing of your winning information.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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