Lottery Scams: SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION

Lottery Scam Email:
SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION
"Walter Jones", "ALBERT COPPENS"

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 vian 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".  

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.

• 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: - 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.

Here is a typical scam lottery winning notification. 

• Master list of sample lottery scam emails

• How to recognize a lottery scam

• What to do if you think you have been the victim of a lottery scam

• How the lottery / sweepstakes scams work

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Actual scam email (One example - the scammers constantly change names, dates and addresses!):

From: "SURF LOTTERY GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION" < walterjones@surflottery.gov.org >
To:
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.

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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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