Have you received an email from "Walter Jones" at "SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION" telling you that "your
email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to
contact "ALBERT COPPENS" to collect your winnings? It is a
scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners via email (see footnote) Notice the
similarity to this scam email. The scammers may
change the names and details, but it is still a scam!
Below is another example of a fake lottery; this email claims to
be from the "SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION".
-
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. 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 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.
-
To: <undisclosed-recipients:> - means it was a
spam email, sent to many, many people.
-
surflottery.gov.org - Not the return email address is
nonexistent - there is no such thing as a ".gov.org" domain.
From: "SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION"
< walterjones@surflottery.gov.org >
To: <undisclosed-recipients:>
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 9:57 AM
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS FROM SURF LOTTERY ORGANIZATION!!!
FROM THE DESK OF THE DIRECTOR PRIZE AWARD DEPT
Ref Number: PW 9590 ES 9414
Batch Number: 573881545-NL/2005
Ticket Number: PP 3502 /8707-01
Amount Won: $2,500,000.00.
Attn Lucky Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the last final annual draw of
our Lottery International Programs.
The online cyber lotto draws was conducted from an exclusive list of
25,000,000 e-mail addresses of individual and corporate bodies picked by
an
advanced automated random computer search from the internet.
No tickets were
sold.
CONGRATULATIONS!!!
After this automated computer ballot, your e-mail address emerged as a winner
in the category "A" with the following numbers attached Ref Number: PW 9590 ES
9414,Batch Number: 73881545-NL/2006 and Ticket Number: PP 3502 /8707-01 You are
therefore to receive a cash prize of $2,500,000.00. (Two Million Five Hundred
Thousand United States Dollars) from the total payout
CONGRATULATIONS!!!. Your prize award has been insured with your e-mail
address and will be transferred to you upon meeting our requirements, statutory
obligations, verifications, validations and satisfactory report.
To file in for the processing of your prize winnings, you are advised to
contact our Certified and Accredited claims agent for category "A" winners with
the information below:
*************************************
Mr.ALBERT COPPENS
E-mail: agencyofclaims@yahoo.de
Tel:+31 616 937 546
Fax:+31-840-731-5655
*************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information:
Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
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 the 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,
Walter Jones.
Lottery Coordinator.
