Often I receive email saying I have won million from the UK are these scams?

Question

At least once a week I receive several emails of winnings. I think they are scams. Most of them have serveral typos and tell you not to tell anyone. Plus, they mention that you have to pay for certificate fees and insurance based on laws of that country. There is a lottory in the UK. How can tell the difference from the true ones?

Answer 1

These lottery scams are variants on the Nigerian 419 Advance Fee Fraud,

Advance fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance relatively small sums of money in the hope of realizing a much larger gain.

Currently the most visible form of the fraud is the Nigerian Letter or 419 fraud named after the section of the Nigerian criminal code that it violates. Originally sent by fax machine the Nigerian Letter is now sent almost exclusively by email. The typical Nigerian letter claims to come from a person needing to transfer large sums of money ($20-$35 million) out of the country.

As the Nigerian letter variation of the fraud has become well known, the gangs operating the scams have developed numerous variations. The target is often told that they are the beneficiary of an inheritance or invited to impersonate a beneficiary of a large unclaimed estate.

In the variation of the fraud known as "The Spanish Prisoner" the target is told that a wealthy individual is being held hostage and will reward those who help transfer of the ransom money. Another common gambit is a fake lottery in which the target is told that they have 'won' a large prize but must pay an administrative fee before they receive it.

In a recent development of the scheme, the perpetrators use a counterfeit cashiers check to buy an expensive item such as a car or boat from people advertising goods in online classifieds. The target is then asked to forward part of the money to pay for shipping as soon as the check clears. Because banks in the USA are required by law to honor a check within 1-5 working days (even before a check has cleared) they will report the proceeds as available for withdrawal before the check is presented to the issuing bank for clearance and the fraud is discovered.

LOTTERY SCAMS

A typical lottery scam is a scam email that tells the recipient they have won a sum of money in a lottery. The recipient is instructed to keep the notice secret and to contact an agent. After contacting the "agent", the recipient will be asked to pay money as fees, but will never receive any lottery payment.

A typical scam email will read like this:

PRIME LOTTERY INTERNATIONAL
Customer S
We happily announce to you the draw of the UK-LOTTO Sweepstake Lottery International programs held on the 27th of March, 2004 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number: 564 75600545188 with Serial number 5368/02 drew the lucky numbers: 19-6-26-17-35-7, which subsequently won you the lottery in the 2nd category.

You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of US$2,500,000.00 (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars)in cash credited to file ktu/9023118308/03.This is from a total cash prize of U.S $ 2.5 Million dollars, shared amongst the first nine (9) luckywinners in this category.

All participants were selected randomly from World Wide Web site through computer draw system and extracted from over 100,000 companies. This promotion takes place annually. Please note that your lucky winning number falls within our European booklet representative office in Europe as indicated in your play coupon. In view of this, your U.S$2,500,000.00 (Two million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars) would be released to you by our payment office in Europe.

Our European agent will immediately commence the process to facilitate the release of your funds as soon as you contact him. For security reasons, you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize.

This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements. Please be warned.

To file for your claim, please contact our fiduciary agent: Mr Richard Diwar Email:[e-mail]

To avoid unnecessary delays and complications, please quote your reference/batch numbers in any correspondence with us or our designated agent.

Congratulations once more from all members and staffs of this program. Thank you for being part of our promotional lottery program.

Sincerely,
SIR HENRY BERNARD
UK-LOTTO Co-ordinator

WARNINGS issued by United States government

The United States Federal Trade Commission has issued a consumer alert about the Nigerian scam. It says:

"If you receive an offer via email from someone claiming to need your help getting money out of Nigeria — or any other country, for that matter — forward it to the FTC at [e-mail]."

The United States Department of the Treasury advises:

"You may also email the 419er documents, especially any banking data they may have given you, marked as described above, to Task Force Main in DC [e-mail]; that is also acceptable."

GENUINE LOTTERIES

Genuine lotteries are ones you have entered and paid to enter. If there is no entry fee, how do the fraudulent ones propose to raise the money to make these massive payouts?

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

nobody ever gets out for nought!
Can you really imagine, any-one of these firms giving you anything for nothing !!!!
It just does not happen
They are all basically scams ,in order to get customers , signed up for whatever they are selling .
JUST THINK , if someone had your address and wanted to give you huge sums of money ,
they would just put the cheque in the post to you
Not mess about with " you have definitely WON"
Do yourself a favour , delete ignore and bin them
A lottery is another way of making money ... a few people do randomly win something , but the odds on winning are infinitesimally small .
Depressing , ---------i really really would like a big win !
and HOW!
;o)

Answer 4

Don't you have a spam blocker? You don't just win stuff out of the blue. If you entered a contest, thats the only way you'd be contacted, but those are mostly just scams too. Nothing is free and there is no santa clause, tooth faery or easter bunny.

Answer 5

Girl! It's a total Scam. I "apparantely" won the UK, Spain and Netherlands lottery!!! When I got all three emails during the week...I knew it was a scam!!

Answer 6

Scams, Scams, Scams. I get those all the time too, they even started coming in the mail. I think this stems from me filling out those on line surveys and contests. I think that's how they get my email address and home address. I've since quit filling out anything that requires my address, phone number etc.

Answer 7

Yes it is a scam i got 2 emails on my 2 different accounts and when inquired about it they didnt reply because they got stuck as they were telling me you were selected in a draw

Answer 8

Do you play the lottery in the UK? See I don't and I get the e-mails, common sense tells me it is a scam! If you don't play it how can you win it?

Answer 9

Absolutely

Answer 10

Yes! Thank goodness you checked first.
Go to www.snopes.com
They have great info on these types of scams. Look up in their search engine under "scam."