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Lottery Scam Report from a
Victim:
Markham, Donnelly & Associates
Ronkomkona, NY or Canada
Have you received an email from"Markham, Donnelly & Associates" telling you that "your
email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to
contact them to collect your winnings? It is a
scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners via email (see footnote)! The scammers may
change the names and details, but it is still a scam!
Below is the example of the fake lottery scam claiming to
be from the "Markham, Donnelly & Associates", related by the victim.
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. Typical warning signs 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.
Actual case reported by a victim (One example - the scammers constantly change
names, dates and addresses!):
My 83 year old father has had dementia for several
years, and it worsened to the degree that my mother could no longer care for
him and he went into a nursing home. Sadly, we discovered that he has spent
about $60,000.00 over a period of years. He was sending money to many different
"companies" from all over the world.
I have Power of Attorney for my father and have taken
over the handling of his financial affairs, so it is only now coming to light
what he has been up to. His mail has been redirected to me and the deluge of
mail is shocking.
One of these letters is from Markham, Donnelly &
Associates, PO Box 49, Ronkomkona, NY. It promises Dad that he will receive
$10,000.00.
"To receive your cash award and property entitlement,
please enclose with this Winnings Acceptance Form the small contribution of
CAN$27.99 to cover the processing costs of your file and the shipping costs of
your cash award and property entitlement directly to your home address. Please
make cheque payable to Markham, Donnelly & Associates.
To benefit from our Ultra-Fast Processing, please add
CAN$5.99 extra for a total of CAN$33.98."
The letter goes on to ask for a credit card number and
the CVV number. Isn't there anything that can be done about outfits like this?
My father continues to insist that he is going to be a millionaire.
Thanks for any help
Names of Scam / Fake / Fraud Lottery
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. |
