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. Perry N. Gelakis" at "Luckyday Lottery NL" telling you that "your email address won in the second category" or something similar, and to contact "Ray Hetman" to collect your winnings? 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 "Luckyday Lottery NL".
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.
This one was sent from a free Yahoo email account: loterijburo@yahoo.de and had the subject line of "Dear Email User!!!"
Luckyday Lottery NL
Promotional/Sweepstakes Office
Laan van Hoornwijck 55
2289 DG Rijswijk
KvK: 41151075
The Netherlands.Dear Sir/Madam,
We are pleased to inform you that your email address has won 1,520,000.00 Euro (One Million Five Hundred and Twenty Thousand Euro Only) in the Netherlands Luckyday Lottery Sweepstakes promotional program, conducted on the 31st of Janaury 2010, sponsored by consortium of software promotion companies.
For more informations/procedure of your winning claim, you are advice to contact our processing department with the contact information below, providing them with your winning details below.
Ray Hetman (Mr).
Lottery Processing Dept.
Tel: +31 626-565-976
Fax: +31 847-449-863
Email: contactclaims@sify.com
Your Winning Details:
Ref No: STLI/722-5/0079
Batch No: 864/0587JQ.
E-Ticket No: ZUK-7708-737-709
Serial No: NL/9667/0788
NOTE: Please be warned, your winning and its entire information are to be kept strictly confidential, this is to avoid previous bad experience this program has suffered, such as abuse of this program by other internet user who use the name of this company for unscrupulous activities and double claiming of winning entitlement because of insecurity of winning information on the part of beneficiaries. Always call to ensure you are dealing with the right office.
Sincerely,
Mr. Perry N. Gelakis
Sweepstakes Coordinator.
Visit our website at: http://www.luckyday.nl
Lotto is een onderdeel van De Lotto. Copyright(c) 2008 by De Lotto, the Netherlands.
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The Free Lotto Awards is organized by a consortium firm companies to encourage the use of the internet and promote computer literacy worldwide.
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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.