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 "Dr Arnold Jammie" at "the Australian Lottery" saying you won their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "MRS ALICE HENRY" to collect your winnings? It is a scam. And don't get too excited if the names are different; the scammers make many versions of this scam! be sure to also see the form they attached.
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 give money away randomly to encourage you to buy their product. That would be pointless and 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?
Keep Confidential - Real promotions THRIVE on publicity: that's the purpose of them! They don't want you to keep anything secret - the publicity causes people to buy their product. 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!"
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 or a lottery, then this must be the world's worst promotion, because no one has heard of it, outside of the email you just received. Just giving away money to random people who have an email address wouldn't promote a darn thing! It is a scam!
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:
Dear winner,
We deeply congratulate you once again for winning the Australian Lottery. All participants in this lottery program were selected randomly through a computer ballot system, drawn from 85.000.000 individual email addresses from all registered e-mail address. Your e-mail address was picked by the automated computer ballot system, which was programed for this random selection.This random selection has eventually qualified you for this years Annual Australian lottery Winning.
This promotional programme takes place annually,and is being promoted and sponsored by eminent personalities like, Sultan of Brunei, Bill Gates of Microsoft Inc,Australian prime minister John Haward.With the support of other European corporate companies and organizations to encourage the use of Internet and computers systems worldwide.
Attached to these email is a winners application form which you are required to fill and return back to us by scanning with a copy of your government issued identity,to enable us identify you as the real winner and commence with the processing of your winning prize fund.Also attached is my ID card for your reference.Should you have any information please contact me at the Australian Lottery Customer Claim Center.
Best Regards
Dr Arnold Jammie
Claim agent Australian lottery centre.
DEAR WINNERWE CONGRATULATE YOU ONCE AGAIN FOR BEEN PART OF OUR THIS YEARS AUSTRALIAN ONLINE LOTTERY PROMOTIONS WHICH HAVE EVENTUALY QUALIFIED YOU AS A WINNER OF (900,000)NINE HUNDRED THUASAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS,THIS INTERNET BALLOT RANDOM SELECTION WAS CONDUCTED FROM ALL REGISTERED EMAIL ADDRESSES WORLD WIDE.
YOU ARE TO CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT AT THE LOTTERY CENTRE IN OUR REGIONAL BRANCH IN AFRICA WHERE YOUR WINNING NUMBER FALLED,DR ARNOLD JAMMIE VIan email ( dr_rnold_jammie02@yahoo.com )TEL+2348063245780 FOR THE PROCESSING AND TRANSFER OF YOUR WINNING PRIZE FUND.
BEST REGARDS
MRS ALICE HENRY
EXECUTIVE AUSTRALIAN LOTTO LOTTERY INC.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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