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Sample Promotion Prize Scam Email:
YAHOO! International Promotions Program
"Merrill-Janet Briggs", "Mr David Warner"
Have you received an email from "Merrill-Janet Briggs" at "YAHOO! International Promotions Program" saying you won
their promotion or lottery promo and to contact "Mr David Warner" to collect your winnings?
Besides... they don't even say what they are promoting, or how you entered!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:
Sample scam email
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 15:41:41 +0100
From: Merrill-Janet Briggs < highland3@gci.net >
Subject: YAHOO WINNER 2007
Dear Esteemed Winner,
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the YAHOO! International
Promotions Program held on the 15th of January 2007. Your e-mail
address attached to ticket number 883734657492-5319 with serial number
7263-267, batch number 8254297137 drew the lucky numbers 14-22-28-37-40-44
which consequently won in the 1st category, you have therefore been
approved for a lump sum pay out of £500,000.00 (i.e Five Hundred Thousand
United Kingdom Pounds Sterling) in cash credited to file
REF:YAHOO6/315116127/27. This is from total prize money of
US$20,400,000.00 shared among the seventeen international winners in
this category.
To claim your winning prize, you must first contact the claims
department by email. The claims officer contact email is:
Name: Mr David Warner
E-mail: emaildavidwarners@yahoo.dk
Tel: +4470-1113-8668
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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