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 "Theresa Taylor" at "Msn quarterly Millions Promotional Bonus" saying you won their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Jerry Mills" to collect your winnings? And you won all this money just because you have a Hotmail email address! Wow!
We hate to burst your bubble, but it is a scam. 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 randomly give away money to encourage you to buy their product. That would be 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. We have highlighted some of these 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.
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?
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.
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:
Play Ticket# :10222/YXP-00152 YOU ARE A WINNER *(525,000.00GBP)*MICROSOFT INC.
Dear Subscriber,
We are pleased to inform you of the results of the just concluded Msn quarterly Millions Promotional Bonus which drew your email address as one of the lucky winners of this quarter's Millions Platinum Vactaion Trip Card.
Being one of the lucky winners of the Msn Millions Bonanza you are therefore a recepient of the Platinum Vacation Trip Card which affords you the opportunity to tour round five major cities in Europe,America and Asia as a special vacation plan, arranged by Msn Inc.Uk, your accommodation and feeding cost are all inclusive in your winning Platinum Vacation Trip Card .
The Vacation Platinum Card has an instant cash value of 525,000.00GBP(Five Hundred and Twenty Five Thousand Pound Sterling), which is redeemable in cash. Winners can either redeem Platinum Vactaion Trip Card, to engage in the MICROSOFT INC. Round the world vacation trip, or the equivallent cash amount of 525,000.00GBP.
All Email Address where collated from our world wide data base and other database like aol.com, yahoo etc, and electronically extrapolated, and after a random computarised ballot selection by our secure MICROSOFT ORACLE DATA BASE raffle system, five Msn/Hotmail email address emerged as the 2nd lucky winners of this quarter Msn/Hotmail Millions and 2 lucky winner from non Msn/Hotmail email address in which your email address was randomly selected as one of the lucky winners.
Your email address was electronically attached to the following credentials,
Play Ticket# :10222/YXP-00152
Claims Sort #:000000234/109.To Proceed with the immediate process of your claims you will be required to contact the Msn/Hotmail Millions Claims Redemption Office, with the following informations.
FULL NAMES:
AGE:
NATIONALITY:
WINNING EMAIL ADDRESS:
OCCUPATION:
PHONE NUMBER:
Submit all informations vian email to the Desk of the Msn Millions Claims Process office;
CLAIMS OFFICER: MR.Jerry Mills
EMAIL: xmas_millions42010@hotmail.com
The Msn Millions Email Bonanza is organised quarterly, as a Bonanza for all users of Msn/Hotmail world wide, above the age of 18years. From all members and staff of the Msn/Hotmail Millions promotions of Microsoft Inc UK, we say congratulations for your success in the recently concluded Msn Millions .
N.B:
Please quote your Reference number in all correspondence with the claims officer and also keep this email to yourself to avoid multiple claims.
Best Regards,
Theresa Taylor(Mrs.)
Microsoft Inc. UK/Millions Promotion
www.msn.co.uk.
TEl:+447024060315
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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