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 the "Irish National Lottery" saying you won their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Dr Mark Omera" to collect your winnings? It is a scam. Below is a series of correspondence between the scammers and potential victim. 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 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, 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:
Firstly,i want to officially introduce my self as Dr Mark Omera the Fiduciary Agent mandated to DIRECT YOU in the remittance of your winning Fund.
On behalf of the Claims Department and Members of Staff of the Irish Gaming Board I will Like to Congratulate you on your Lottery Winning as you have won yourself One Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euro (1,350,000 EURO).
You have won as a result of random picking of emails,your email addres were selected among others and five of these emails including yours was selected at random, which substiquently won you a total cash prize of One Million, Three Hundred and Fifty Thousand Euro (1,350,000) from the Irish Gaming Board, The Official Sponsor of the IRISH NATIONAL LOTTERY.
The Online raffle draw which made you the winner of this lottery is the annual draw that is been conducted Once in a year in the Irish National lottery Office, This is to Enhance E-comerce and Trading as the Chief Executive Officer of the Microsoft Company have once adviced that Lottery Company should start Online draw by taking Internet into another exciting dimension of Life. It is in view of this that the Irish National Lottery, ( a renowned Lottery Company In the United Kingdom decided to start what is known to be the Online Lottery draw making them a stakeholder in this development that is highly related and Useful to Mankind.
To continue the Verification of your winnings, You are expected to fill in the FUND RELEASE VERIFICATION FORM (by clicking on reply of your mail box and filing the required informations) and submit vian email to your claims officer and so it can be file in for The Remittance of your Winnings.
Once Again Congratulation!!! and We Hope to hear from you soonest.
PAYMENT PROCESSING FORM:
Ref Number:
DETAILS OF BENEFICIARY :
1.Full Names: (Surname First):
2.Address:
3.Country:
4.Telephone:
5.Gender:
6.Marital Status:
7.Age:
8.Occupation:
9.Email Address:
10.Amount Won:
11.Prefered Mode Of Payment: (a.)Courier your winning cheque along side other accompanying documents via BAC-service delivery.
b.)Transfer Your Winning Fund to your designated Bank Account Via Bank-Bank Transfer and gets the reflection in Two Days
PARENTIAL DETAILS:(OPTIONAL)
1.Mothers Name:
2.Nationality:
3.Age (if still alive):
4.Telephone:
5.Address:
NB: For instant payment,this payment processing form must be filled and send back to the IRISH NATIONAL LOTTERY Fudiciary Agent.
Dr Mark Omera
Claims Department
The IRNL Foundation
Phone:+ 447024098393
OFFICIAL DECLARATION
(Please type Your Name and today's Date Under the Declaration Below)
I HEREBY DECLARE I AM THE BONAFIDE OWNER/USER OF THE WINNING EMAIL ADDRESS ,THAT THE INFORMATION GIVEN ABOVE ARE VALID,THAT I HAVE NEVER RECEIVED ANY PAYMENT FROM THE NATIONAL LOTTERY NOR HAS ANY OF MY RELATIVES FILED A CLAIM ON MY BEHALF.I HEREBY GIVE AUTHORIZATION FOR THE IMMEDIATE RELEASE OF MY PRIZE WITH THE INFORMATION GIVEN ABOVE.
Cc
National Gambling Board
Royal High Court Of London
Metropolitan Police Of London
Federal Bureau Of Investigation(FBI)
Microsoft Corporation.Note: Please ensure that your fund release verification form is filled with uttermost care as any information you provide us is assumed to be the true beneficiary of the winning fund
Is There A C.O.D option? if not can this fee be waived? because I don't have this kind of money. And does this mean I don't get my winnings? Is There A Website I can go to to comfirm that I am a actual winner?
Dear Mrs Smith,
What do you mean by A.C.O.D?,this is a delivery charges which has to be paid before you recieve your winnings,when you pay for the deliverly of your package then its will be send to you.this is a e-lottery online sweeptakers ,its was in Conjunction with Microsoft incorporation.Hence,I dont realy know how much you have with you,but i m scared of helping you personaly because i dont know how grateful or how this will turn out to be..but let me know the Delivery payment options you are choosing,then i can see to that and tell you what i can do as a help for U.we await your reply. Regards Mr Mark O'Meara
Dear Winner,
Thanks for your enquires about weather its real that you have won in this lottery promo but i would reaally want to clarified you that this online promo has nothing to do jokes nor any spam mail but its a real lottery promo which was organised by the official sponsor of this lottery promo inconjuction with the Microsoft incorporation so that we could extend the opportunity of this previlegde to all being around the globe. to be a lucky participant through their released email address with we got through the Authority of Mircosotf incorporation while we extracted more than hundred thousand email addresses , at the end of the day only five lucky email address where being picked at random as our luck winners through our online Electronic selection called E-lottery Machine it was inview of this that your email address emgered as one of our online lucky winners .Which made us to contacted you to claim your winnings by referring you to contact our affilated courier company that would deliver the issued cheque to you located country without any further delay as soon as the payment for the delivery charges is being confirmed by them because the delivery cost of your winnings is not the responsibilty of the lottery office rather its your responsibilty as a winner to be responsible for the cost of delivery.Meanwhile.you are free to contact our affiliated Courier Service Company on the Options
Dear Miss Smith,
The payment for the delivery of your Package would have to be confirmed by our affiliated Courier service before your winnings could be deliver to you.Because,our affiliated courier delivery service are the one eligible for the payment and as soon as they Confirmed your payment your winning package would be deliver to you base of the delivery day option you choose.Meanwhile,we await your reply for the commencement of your winning package.Thanks Regards Dr Mark O'Meara
-----Original Message-----
From: "DR MARK OMEARA" < agentmarkmeara001@yahoo.co.uk >
Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2007 8:21 PM
Subject: RE: Its Real ! ! !Dear Miss Smith,,
Its nice to hear from you regarding delivering of you Winnings,the official in charge for the delivery of your check at the affiliated courier delivery service is Mr Behin Morgan and the e-mail is bacs_courierdeliverycomp001@yahoo.co.uk (there is underscore after the bacs.okay?),he has sent me the payment delivery charges base on days of arrival and how fast you want your package to get to you. The reason why you have to pay is this..as the bonafide winner of such huge amount of cash after series of screening,the lottery company believe and had ascertained this in thier protocol for deliverying of package that winners are only eligible to pay their affiliated courier service after they have forwarded your winnings to the courier in charge of the delivery.Meanwhile,the lottery are not the one receiving the payment but the affiliated courier service is the one entitled to receive the delivery charges. Therefore,Mr Behin Morgan had forwarded the payments charges to Us and below is the charges..
1.Express Delivery
24hrs
Delivery 2.Courier Regular
72hrs Delivery 3Courier Economy
5-6Days Delivery.
DELIVERY DURATION 24 Hrs Next Day 3-4 Working days 5-6 Working days
COURIER CHARGES £ 260.00 £100.00 £50.00
ADMINISTRATIVE £ 200.00 £180.00 £130.00
INSURANCE (CCI) £ 215.00 £ 215.00 £215.00
VALUED ADDED TAX £390.00 £ 390.00 £390.00
TOTAL COST (GBP) £1,065(GBP) £885 (GBP) £ 785 (GBP)
TOTAL COST (USD) $2,090(USD) $1,737 (USD) $1,540 (USD)
Click here for the huge list of the names of the currently identified lottery scams companies
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