Protect Yourself and Report the Latest Frauds, Scams, Spams, Fakes, Identify Theft Hacks and Hoaxes
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Did you know that Yahoo has a lottery? And that they give away huge amounts of money to people simply for having "an active online email account"? This is news to Yahoo, too. If you received an email from "Rev. Larry Lee" at "YEAR 2008 YAHOO! Lottery promotion" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to contact "Rev Larry" to collect your winnings, it is a scam. Yahoo has never had any lottery (and we're pretty sure they never will). Yahoo certainly doesn't "collect email addresses" or selects winners "using a database of email addresses", or "from websites worldwide", or from "our computer ballot system". Each of those activities would be illegal in many countries, under existing privacy laws. Not to mention, it simply makes no sense for Yahoo to simply give away money. Real lotteries take in much more money than they give away, through ticket sales? Businesses are not lotteries - customers don't buy or use their products or services on the hope that the company will run a lottery for its customers. And it's just plain dumb to believe that!
The scammers may change the names and details, but it is still a scam! Don't be an complete imbecile!
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 "YEAR 2008 YAHOO! Lottery promotion".
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, not the least of which are:
Yahoo does not have or sponsor any lottery.
Email address ballot: There is no such thing as a "computer ballot system" or "computer email draw". No one, not even Yahoo has a database of email addresses of the type or magnitude they suggest.
"No tickets were sold": You care to explain where the money comes from? Perhaps the lottery money fairy? Why would a lottery give away money to "email address randomly selected by a computer ballot draw system"? This is CLEARLY nonsense: you MUST, repeat MUST buy a ticket to have a chance of winning any lottery!
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.) - often not even a Yahoo free account. Don't you think Yahoo would write from their own corporate address?
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! It should read: "For our own security, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential until we have finished scamming you!"
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.
Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification.
From: YAHOO AWARD INC
aholotoinc2008@avasmail.com.mv > Subject: Dear Winner..........Claim Your Yahoo Lottery Prize Award.
Date: Friday, April 25, 2008, 7:11 AM
YAHOO! REGIONAL OFFICE
Baley House,Harold Road
Sutton.Greater London
SM14te,London,
UNITED KINGDOM.
Dear Winner..........Claim Your Yahoo Lottery Prize Award.
This is to inform you that you have won a prize money of ONE MILLION UNITED STATES DOLLARS ($1,000,000.00) in the YEAR 2008 YAHOO! Lottery promotion which is organized by YAHOO! LOTTERY INC for the introduction and Launching of the new YAHOO! BETA MAIL which all YAHOO! subscribers are required to switch to. YAHOO! & MICROSOFT WINDOWS, arranged and gathered all the e-mail addresses of the people that are active online, among the millions that subscribe at YAHOO!, HOTMAIL and others, we only selected THREE (3) candidates as our winners after undergoing the random selection process through Electronic Balloting System (E.B.S) without the candidate applied, we congratulate you for being one of the people selected.
Note: You are advise and required to quote your identification numbers correct.
You are therefore advised to send the following information to him to facilitate and process the claim of your Winning prize with the appointed paying bank.
IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS:
Batch number.....................YBM-EBS-390AF
Reff number........................YBM-EBS-719AF
Winning number...............YBM-EBS-798AF
PERSONAL INFORMATION:
1. Full name..................
2. Nationality....................
3. Contact Address......
4. Telephone Number..
5. Marital Status.........
6. Occupation..............
7. Age..........................
8. Sex...........................
9. Atternative E-mail add:.....
Below Here is the E-mail contact and telephone number of your claim agent.
Rev. Larry Lee at his email:
E-mail: rev.lee@lottoclaimsagent.com
Alter Email add:revlarrylee@hotmail.com
Phone: +44-702-405-4692
Note:This prize will be released to you from any of our promotional banks as will be directed by the United Kingdom Claim/verification agent.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo Inc!. All rights reserved.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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