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 "Alice Henry" at "Australia International Lottery" saying you won their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Charles Martins" to collect your winnings? And your email address won: their system gathered email addresses of all the Yahoo Mail/Hotmail/Aol etc Subscribers from all~ over the world". Oh, sure.... Has your scam-detector gone off the scale yet? It is a scam. And don't get too excited if the names are different; the scammers make many versions of this scam!
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 randomly give away money to encourage you to buy their product. That would be 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, then this must be the world's worst promotion, because no one has heard of it, outside of the email you just received.
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:
from: Alice Henry" < alice_henry0002@hotmail.com >
Subject: Re: CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT (Winning Notification Of Your Prize Of US$ 600,000)
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 13:42:57 +0100AUSTRALIA Online Info.----------------------
National Lottery
FROM: THE DESK OF THE VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL PROMOTIONS/PRIZE AWARDS DEPARTMENT AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL SWEEPSTAKE LOTTERY COPORATION.The National Lottery
224 Terrigal Drive -
Terrigal, NSW 2260
Terrigal, Terrigal - AustraliaRE:AWARD NOTIFICATION: FINAL NOTICE!!!
REF No: 575061725
BATCH No: 8056490902/188
TICKET No: 675061725 9356460902
SERIAL No: 67749137002.
LUCKY No: 2-9-23-35-46 Bonus Number 14
CREDIT FILE REF: ILP/HW 46704/03WE DONT TOLERATE PIRACY OR SCAM !
Be A Winner !!!
CONGRATULATIONS: This lottery is a promotional program by LOTTO, NL (Biggest lottery Organization in the Australia) to advertise to the world its existence. All participants were selected through a Computer ballot system drawn which is fully based on an electronic selection from over 50,000 companies and 2,000,000 individual email addresses of all the Yahoo Mail/Hotmail/Aol etc Subscribers from all~ over the world which conquently won you the huge sum of US$600,000.00(SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND~ UNITED STATES DOLLARS), as part of our international promotions program, which we intend to conduct several times a year.
Be informed that your documents have to pass our authority to obtain a clearance, which shall be attached to your document in readiness of the subsequent onward transfer into your nominated bank account within 48 hours of completion of the authentication.
Due to the possibility of unscrupulous individuals filing a double claim, we suggest that you keep this award strictly confidential until your claim has been processed and notarized and your certificate of award obtained. This is in conformity with the lottery claim regulations by our Organization & High Court~ of Justice.
This is part of our security protocol measures to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some participants/non participants.
All winnings MUST be claimed before the 20th Of May, 2007 other wise all funds will be forfited. And according to the assigned REGION OF THE WORLD. After this period all unclaimed funds will be included in the next stake.
Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our LONDON Regional booklet representative office in UNITED KINDOM as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this, your (One Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) will be released to you by the approved Payment Financial Institution Regional offices .
To file for your claim, please contact our regional claiming agent in U.K who is obliged to guild you on the steps to making claims on your winning. He is your claims agent.
CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS AGENT HERE FOR MORE DETAILS
Mr. Charles Martins
FIDUCIARY CLAIMS AGENT
AUSTRALIAN INTERNATION LOTTERY INC.
Tel: +44 702 409 9253
Official Email: agent_charles_martin@yahoo.comagent_charles_martin@yahoo.com
NOTE: You must forward your REF No, BATCH No, TICKET No, SERIAL No and your LUCKY No to the regional agent for filing. All winnings must be notarized and a certificate of award must be obtained from the Gaming Board to complete the claims process. In order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications, You are been requested to fill the Winners Application Form for payment which will be sent to you from your regional claims agent and after filling it send back to your regional claims agent the form together with your winning information:-
Delays will compel us to disperse your funds, in other words, we shall divert your funds as stated above.
Kindly remember to quote your reference number in all correspondence.
Finally, you make sure that you save a copy of this mail and note every letter clearly as stated for we will not be held responsible should there be any complications in this transaction due to laxity on your part.
Confidentiality Notice:
AUTRALIE LOTTERY APPROVED
Please note that this email, and any files that may be attached to it, is/are confidential and is/are intended for the sole use of the individual(s) or entity (ies) to which it/they is/are addressed. Any use, distribution, copying or disclosure by any other person or entity is strictly prohibited under applicable law(s). If you received this email in error, please notify the sender by return email and delete the original message (making sure it is also deleted from the Deleted Items folder of your mail client). Opinions, conclusions and other information in this message that do not relate to official business of NATIONAL LOTTERY and insurance shall be understood to be neither given nor endorsed by NATIONAL LOTTERY finance and insurance when addressed to comet finance and insurance clients; and any information contained in this email is subject to the terms and conditions of the governing client's contract(s).
ANY BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY ON THE PART OF WINNERS WILL RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION
Copyright 2007 Australian Lottery Prize Award. All right Reserved.
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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