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 "GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar? It is a 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.
Below is another example of a fake lottery; this email claims to be from the "GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY".
There are many other signs that this is a fraud that we have highlighted 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.
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.
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!
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.
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
From : John Smith < j_smith@k-fnan.org >
Sent : Wednesday, March 7, 2007 5:58 AM
Subject : Further Information.ATTN: ________
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am in the receipt of your last email. Checking with information from our database we wish to confirm to you that you emerged one of the winners in the GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY Third Category draw with File Reference Number: GNL20-147-3, and Lotto Batch Number: A14736.
The Third category draw under which you won is a promotional draw; hence participants do not have to purchase tickets to enter for this draw. Names and email addresses of individuals and companies are randomly selected from various lottery companies email database from around the world and entered into the draw. Note that the Third category draw is funded from the proceeds of ticket sales in the First category draw and Second category draw also organized by GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY.
We; Kingdom Finance, act as financial handlers for Grand National Lottery. As a fact we are the claims agent in charge of the disbursement of lottery winnings in the GRAND NATIONAL LOTTERY draws.
Be informed that your winnings amounting to £2,200,000.00, is already in our possession and shall be processed upon meeting our requirements which is the filling/submission of a Claims Form and payment of a stipulated processing fee to cover expenses ranging from the transfer of your winnings, to insurance of documents such as your Prize Claim Certificate, our handling charges, amongst other cost.
Kindly confirm receipt of this email so that I can instruct you about the claims process. Winners have a right as to the informations that are released.
Congratulations once more, I shall be awaiting your confirmation email.
Truly yours,
Mr. John Smith,
Foreign Department Manager,
Kingdom Finance,
Tel: +44-704-570-8434
Fax: +44-870-135-5784
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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