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 "Mr. Paul Anderson" at "U.S. E-Mail Lottery" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to contact "GARRY WARD (dispatch officer)" to collect your winnings? If it is a "U.S. Email Lottery", then why is the contact phone and address in Britain and the email address is a free hotmail account? It is a scam. No legitimate, legal lottery notifies winners vian email (see footnote)! The scammers may change the names and details, 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 "U.S. E-Mail 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, 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.
"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. Names are usually in all capital letters for some reason known only to these illiterate criminals. 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 it's own email, it's 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! 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.
Date: 29th of April 2008
ATTENTION: Ben Stiller
CONGRATULATIONS! This is to inform you that you have been cleared a winner of United States E-mail Lottery online Sweepstakes International program. I am happy to inform you that we have forwarded your Original Certificate and your Certified Bank cheque(issued in USD) to the courier company.
Find below the details of the courier company
COMPANY NAME: Parcels4Delivery Couriers UK
ADDRESS: Cityside House,40 Adler Street London E1 1EE United Kingdom
Contact Person: GARRY WARD (dispatch officer)
EMAIL: customer@parcels-4-delivery.com or p4d.couriers@hotmail.co.uk
TEL: +44-750-229-6317
FAX: +44-870-134-4579
You are advised to send the Courier company an e-mail to their email address for their "courier cost".When contacting them,you are to include this order number as your subject.Please you are adviced to write down the order number and save it.
ORDER NUMBER: 657252
Note: you are Quote your complete Names,address, Ref/Batch Numbers and your direct phone number so that they can honour your letter.Once again i say congratulations and always inform me with your dealings with the Courier company.
Thanks,
Mr. Paul Anderson
Claims Agent,
U.S. E-Mail Lottery
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.