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. Dola Anderson" at "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTERNATIONAL VISA LOTTERY" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to contact "Rev. Dr. Paul Mayer" to collect your winnings? This is rellay a pathetic scam, as it truly makes no sense.
The United States does NOT have a monetary lottery.
The "lottery" for VISAs is actually called the "Diversity Lottery" and does not award money.
United States agencies and government programs are not incorporated "Inc".
The U.S. government would not write to anyone from ANY email address other than one that ends in ".gov"
What would a religious minister, with a PhD, "Rev. Dr. Paul" be doing working for the government in a lottery program. The mind boggles at the obvious contradictions.
Look at the 3rd grade writing in the email, the grammatical errors, misspellings, made-up words, strange use of capital letters, etc. (Ahem: "i before e, except after c....").
It is a scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners vian email (see footnote)! The scammers may change the names and details used in the scam, 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 "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTERNATIONAL VISA LOTTERY".
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 have highlighted some of these in the email below.
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
Date: Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:19:18 -0300
From: "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTERNATIONAL VISA LOTTERY INC" < usltyboard@live.com >
Subject: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA INTERNATIONAL VISA LOTTERY YOU HAVE WON
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEPARTMENT OF STATE BUREAU OF CONSULAR AFFAIRS
Date:04/04/2008
Ref 575061725
Batch: 8056490902/188
Winning no: KB8701/LPRC
Dear Sir/Madam,
CONGRATULATION!!!
We are delighted to inform you of your winning on the 4th of April 2008 draw from the United States of America International Lottery Programme which is partially based on an electronic selection of winners using their e-mail addresses held in Washington, USA.
Your e-mail address was attached to ticket number; 575061725 8056490902 serial number 6741137002 .This batch draws the lucky numbers as follows: 4-13-33-37-
42 bonus number 17, which consequently won the lottery in the second category.
All participants were selected through a computer balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail addresses from Canada, Australia, Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Africa as part of our international promotions program which is conducted annually.
This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base and this makes you the proud owner and you are entitled to a huge lump of $450,000.00 US dollars as our star winner of this year.
HOW TO FILE YOUR CLAIM: Simply contact our EUROPEAN and ASIAN Fiducial Agent, Rev. Dr. Paul Mayer at revdrpaulmayer@usa.com and revdrpaul.gov@latinmail.com to file for your claim or call his number on +44 7031828238
Please quote your Date of draw, Reference Number, Batch Number and Winning Number, which can be found on the top-left corner of this message.
Also, you should give in your telephone number to help locate your file easily. For security reasons, we advice the winner to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and been released to you.This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel.
Note: all winnings MUST be claimed by the 9th of April. 2008; otherwise the fund will be returned as Unclaimed and eventually donated to charity.
Congratulations once again on your winning!
Best Regards.
Mrs. Dola Anderson
(For the co-ordinator).
Copyright © 1968-2008 United States of America lottery inc All rights reserved
WARNING!
***********
ANY MAIL RECIEVED OF THIS SUCH WITH ANY OTHER TRADE MARK OR ADDRESS SHOULD BE FORWARDED TO THIS BOX IMMEDIATELY, THIS WILL HELP US TO FIGHT SCAM AND LOTTERY IMPOSTERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ANTICIPATED CO-OPERATION. OR SENT TO THIS The International Criminal Police Organization (International Crime Division) FRAUD ALERT EMAIL: scam_interpoloffice@sfax.ws
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.