Sample Promotion Prize Scam Email:
Irish National Lottery
"Dr Mark Omera"
Have you received an email from the "Irish National Lottery" saying you won
their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Dr Mark Omera" to collect your winnings? It is a scam.
Below is a series of correspondence between the scammers and potential victim. And don't get too excited if the names are different; the scammers
make many versions of this scam!
It is actually a very simple 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 give money away randomly to encourage you to buy their product. That would be
pointless and self-defeating.
Although the most important clue is that no legitimate lottery,
and almost no legitimate sweepstakes or promotions will email a winner, there
are many other signs that this is a fraud, 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.
-
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.
-
Using free email account: The scammer is writing to
you from a FREE email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.). Don't you think a real organization
would use its own email, its own domain and website? Wouldn't they want to
promote that?
-
Keep Confidential - Real promotions THRIVE on
publicity: that's the purpose of them! They don't want you to keep anything secret - the publicity
causes people to buy their product. 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!"
-
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 or
a lottery, then
this must be the world's worst promotion, because no one has heard of it,
outside of the email you just received. Just giving away money to
random people who have an email address wouldn't promote a darn thing! It is
a scam!
-
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.
It is a typical scam promotion sweepstakes winning notification. Also
see these pages:
Sample scam email
Firstly,i want to officially introduce my self as Dr Mark Omera the
Fiduciary Agent mandated to DIRECT YOU in the remittance of your winning
Fund.
On behalf of the Claims Department and Members of Staff of the Irish
Gaming Board I will Like to Congratulate you on your Lottery Winning as you
have won yourself One Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euro
(1,350,000 EURO).
You have won as a result of random picking of emails,your email addres were selected among others and five of these
emails including yours was selected at random, which
substiquently won you a
total cash prize of One Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euro
(1,350,000) from the Irish Gaming Board, The Official Sponsor of the IRISH
NATIONAL LOTTERY.
The Online raffle draw which made you the winner of this lottery is the
annual draw that is been conducted Once in a year in the Irish National
lottery Office, This is to Enhance E-comerce and Trading as the Chief
Executive Officer of the Microsoft Company have once
adviced that Lottery
Company should start Online draw by taking Internet into another exciting
dimension of Life. It is in view of this that the Irish National Lottery, (
a renowned Lottery Company In the United Kingdom decided to start what is
known to be the Online Lottery draw making them a stakeholder in this
development that is highly related and Useful to Mankind.
To continue the Verification of your winnings, You are expected to fill
in the FUND RELEASE VERIFICATION FORM (by clicking on reply of your mail box
and filing the required informations) and submit via email to your claims
officer and so it can be file in for The Remittance of your Winnings.
Once Again Congratulation!!! and We Hope to hear from you soonest.
PAYMENT PROCESSING FORM:
Ref Number:
DETAILS OF BENEFICIARY :
1.Full Names: (Surname First):
2.Address:
3.Country:
4.Telephone:
5.Gender:
6.Marital Status:
7.Age:
8.Occupation:
9.Email Address:
10.Amount Won:
11.Prefered Mode Of Payment: (a.)Courier your winning cheque along side
other accompanying documents via BAC-service delivery.
b.)Transfer Your Winning Fund to your designated Bank Account Via
Bank-Bank Transfer and gets the reflection in Two Days
PARENTIAL DETAILS:(OPTIONAL)
1.Mothers Name:
2.Nationality:
3.Age (if still alive):
4.Telephone:
5.Address:
NB: For instant payment,this payment processing form must be filled and
send back to the IRISH NATIONAL LOTTERY
Fudiciary Agent.
Dr Mark Omera
Claims Department
The IRNL Foundation
Phone:+ 447024098393
OFFICIAL DECLARATION
(Please type Your Name and today's Date Under the Declaration Below)
I HEREBY DECLARE I AM THE BONAFIDE OWNER/USER OF THE WINNING EMAIL
ADDRESS ,THAT THE INFORMATION GIVEN ABOVE ARE VALID,THAT I HAVE NEVER
RECEIVED ANY PAYMENT FROM THE NATIONAL LOTTERY NOR HAS ANY OF MY RELATIVES
FILED A CLAIM ON MY BEHALF.I HEREBY GIVE AUTHORIZATION FOR THE IMMEDIATE
RELEASE OF MY PRIZE WITH THE INFORMATION GIVEN ABOVE.
Cc
National Gambling Board
Royal High Court Of London
Metropolitan Police Of London
Federal Bureau Of Investigation(FBI)
Microsoft Corporation.
Note: Please ensure that your fund release verification form is filled
with uttermost care as any information you provide us is assumed to be the
true beneficiary of the winning fund
The victim asks if she can pay C.O.D. (Cash-on-delivery)
Is There A C.O.D option? if not can this fee be waived? because I don't
have this kind of money. And does this mean I don't get my winnings? Is
There A Website I can go to to comfirm that I am a actual winner?
The scammer writes back, again in pathetically poor English, bordering on
sheer gibberish. Just for laughs, we highlighted the incorrect spelling and
punctuation:
Dear Mrs Smith,
What do you mean by A.C.O.D?,this is a delivery charges which has to be
paid before you recieve your winnings,when you pay for the
deliverly of your
package then its will be send to you.this is a e-lottery online
sweeptakers
,its was in
Conjunction with Microsoft
incorporation.Hence,I
dont
realy know
how much you have with you,but
i m scared of helping you
personaly because
i
dont know
how grateful or how this will turn out to be..but let me know the
Delivery payment options you are choosing,then
i can see to that and tell
you what i can do as a help for
U.we await your reply. Regards Mr Mark
O'Meara
When the victim (Mrs. Smith) asks for proof of legitimacy, the scammer
continues writing (very poorly) to reassure her:
Dear Winner,
Thanks for your enquires about weather its real that you have won in this
lottery promo but i would reaally want to clarified you that this online
promo has nothing to do jokes nor any spam mail but its a real lottery promo
which was organised by the official sponsor of this lottery promo
inconjuction with the Microsoft incorporation so that we could extend the
opportunity of this previlegde to all being around the globe. to be a lucky
participant through their released email address with we got through the
Authority of Mircosotf incorporation while we extracted more than hundred
thousand email addresses , at the end of the day only five lucky email
address where being picked at random as our luck winners through our online
Electronic selection called E-lottery Machine it was inview of this that
your email address emgered as one of our online lucky winners .Which made us
to contacted you to claim your winnings by referring you to contact our
affilated courier company that would deliver the issued cheque to you
located country without any further delay as soon as the payment for the
delivery charges is being confirmed by them because the delivery cost of
your winnings is not the responsibilty of the lottery office rather its your
responsibilty as a winner to be responsible for the cost of
delivery.Meanwhile.you are free to contact our affiliated Courier Service
Company on the Options
Not hearing back from Mrs. Smith, the scammer tries again:
Dear Miss Smith,
The payment for the delivery of your Package would have to be confirmed
by our affiliated Courier service before your winnings could be deliver to
you.Because,our affiliated courier delivery service are the one eligible for
the payment and as soon as they Confirmed your payment your winning package
would be deliver to you base of the delivery day option you
choose.Meanwhile,we await your reply for the commencement of your winning
package.Thanks Regards Dr Mark O'Meara
With the victim refusing to pay, the scammer is now trying to look
legitimate, by presenting a detailed list of charges. Of course, NO REAL
LOTTERY OR PROMOTION WOULD CHARGE A WINNER ANYTHING, AS THAT IS ILLEGAL:
-----Original Message-----
From: "DR MARK OMEARA" <
agentmarkmeara001@yahoo.co.uk >
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:21 PM
Subject: RE: Its Real ! ! !
Dear Miss Smith,,
Its nice to hear from you regarding delivering of you Winnings,the
official in charge for the delivery of your check at the affiliated courier
delivery service is Mr Behin Morgan and the e-mail is
bacs_courierdeliverycomp001@yahoo.co.uk (there is underscore after the
bacs.okay?),he has sent me the payment delivery charges base on days of
arrival and how fast you want your package to get to you. The reason why you
have to pay is this..as the bonafide winner of such huge amount of cash
after series of screening,the lottery company believe and had ascertained
this in thier protocol for deliverying of package that winners are only
eligible to pay their affiliated courier service after they have forwarded
your winnings to the courier in charge of the delivery.Meanwhile,the lottery
are not the one receiving the payment but the affiliated courier service is
the one entitled to receive the delivery charges. Therefore,Mr Behin Morgan
had forwarded the payments charges to Us and below is the charges..
1.Express Delivery
24hrs
Delivery 2.Courier Regular
72hrs Delivery 3Courier Economy
5-6Days Delivery.
DELIVERY DURATION 24 Hrs Next Day 3-4 Working days 5-6 Working days
COURIER CHARGES £ 260.00 £100.00 £50.00
ADMINISTRATIVE £ 200.00 £180.00 £130.00
INSURANCE (CCI) £ 215.00 £ 215.00 £215.00
VALUED ADDED TAX £390.00 £ 390.00 £390.00
TOTAL COST (GBP) £1,065(GBP) £885 (GBP) £ 785 (GBP)
TOTAL COST (USD) $2,090(USD) $1,737 (USD) $1,540 (USD)
At this point the victim contacted us and we advised her (not "adviced" as
the scammers often write!) to cease all communications with the scammers.
And thus keep her money.
Names of Scam / Fake / Fraud Lottery
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery
scams companies
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