this person says that he is from Citi Bank PLC london and says that i have won a lottery as i was using yahoo messenger. The email further says that :
Yahoo! Mail gives members random cash prizes. Today, your account is randomly selected as the one of 12 top winners accounts who will get cash prizes from us. We are happy to inform you that you have won a prize money of (One Million Two Hundred Thousand USD DOLLARS. ($1.200,000) for end of the month promotion which is organized by yahoo messenger .com every month.
Yahoo, collects all the mail id of the people that are online on yahoo messenger, among the millions that subscribe to yahoo messenger and all internet users .we only select five people every month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we are congratulating you for been one of the people selected. All participant were selected through a computer balloting system drawn from Nine hundred thousand E-mail add
2007-02-27 01:33:17 · 35 answers · asked by Anonymous in Games & Recreation ➔ Gambling
Dont touch it with a bargepole! Scam!
2007-02-27 01:37:12 · answer #1 · answered by Tiffers 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This looks like a scam.
First of all, they say that you were selected among twelve other winners THIS DAY. Then later, they say you were one of the five lucky winners selected PER MONTH.
Second, the person is calling from Citi Bank in London, England, to award you 1.2 million in U.S. Currency. A National Bank would not award you U.S. dollars if they were in London.
Thirdly, was this the actual mesage? A formal message like that would ABSOLUTELY NOT have so many grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors in it. If it was a message from Yahoo, it would have no typos at all.
Anyway, since 1.2 million U.S. Dollars is a lot of cash, ask Yahoo.com about this E-Mail. Anyways, this just bleeds SCAM!!!
2007-03-02 11:06:08 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You will probably get hundreds of these types of emails in the next year or so, from many different sources. My best advice is when you get them do NOT click on any link in the email. Don't even open it, just read it directly from the inbox. You can check out it's authenticity by going directly to the site. If it's from yahoo then open a separate page, and type in www.yahoo.com or www.yahoo.ca, depending on where you are. Look within that site to see if they are conducting a legitimate lottery or email them to ask. Do not respond to the email you received in any way.
You get more information about scams and phishing at:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/email/phishing.mspx
and
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ent-security.nsf/0/ee9d0bde5374414c88256a930048df99?OpenDocument
Also never download any free virus protection programs from sources that you are not absolutely sure you can trust. Most of these are in fact programs that put viruses into your computer rather than remove them. Reliable protection can be found at www.symantec.com or www.mcafee.com. These have both been around for a long time and are legitimate virus protection programs.
For information on yahoo scams check out http://security.yahoo.com/article.html?aid=2006111501
Hope this helps.
2007-02-27 01:55:23 · answer #3 · answered by Eris 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It is scam. Yahoo do not run a lottery, if they did you could guarantee it would be advertised all over their home page. Check out these links and search answers to see how many people 'win' the exact same lottery every day
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=630...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/lottery_sca...
Do not click on any links, the page you will be taken to will look authentic but is not
Do not send them a 'courier fee' or any other money
Do not hand over any bank details or passwords
Do report spam
Do delete
Remember there is no such thing as a free lunch. You cannot win a lottery if you havenot bought a ticket.
(I've answered this question so many times that I now keep this answer on my desktop and just copy and paste....that should give you a clue!)
2007-02-27 10:20:14 · answer #4 · answered by 'H' 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Look at the questions I have answered on this site in my info. There are so many winners there could not be enough money to pay them all.There is no International Lottery.This is a Nigeria scam. Yahoo/MSN, U.K. and Australian lotteries, football lotteries from the same counties, Global-Link, World Poverty, Microsoft, Free Lotto, which now seems to have it's own people answering gambling questions on this site claiming they have won which is a total lie, and hundreds more. I am a retired Police Officer that has years of experience investigating Internet scams and frauds. This is an old one. The common link to them getting your email is on line surveys. Yahoo does not give it's stock holders money away nor does it give it's email subscribers address's to lotteries. The only way to win in a lottery is to buy a ticket, if you didn't you could not possibly win. Here is the website of the 17 nation law enforcement task force that investigates cross border Internet crime. You may file a complaint there. www.econsumer.gov. Also go to www.ripoffreport.com and browse complaints and you will find many having the same doubts as yourself about these scams. Below is a typical scam and how they work it. They just go under a thousand different names. They are asking you to send a prepayment to collect your winnings and they want you to send it by a money wire service. Lotteries do not just pick your name out of thin air, and just so happen to have your email also. No Internet service provider gives their email list out to lotteries. If you did not pay to play you could not possibly win.
recieved letter of winning $65000.00 Pacific Player International lotteries,please contact claims agent miss linda strong at 204-951-7582. Second letter came with a check for the amount of $2,470.00 To deposited in my bank account for processing fee,a week later check cleared my bank. I contacted my claims agent over the phone she advise me to wire the balance of $2,341.00 to a Mr Edward Culwell in New York,New York.I called miss linda strong to advise her of the western union confirmation number,to date can not get in touch with linda strong just her voice mail, I know now that it was all a RIP-OFF and now Iam in the hole with $2,470.00 with my bank.... Please send HELP... THANK YOU VERY MUCH
2007-02-27 04:33:08 · answer #5 · answered by ohbrother 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
NO it's just another scam, why not do a search on answers for questions about the Yahoo lottery,
1 it doesn't exist,
2 there have been numerous questions about it in the past
3 it's an attempt to either get your bank details, or get you to send them a sum of money to 'unlock' the prize, which you will never receive.
2007-02-27 02:04:15 · answer #6 · answered by mike-from-spain 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Lottery Fraud
This involves letters or email messages which advise that the recipient has won a prize in a lottery. To obtain the funds the recipient has to respond to the letter or email message. A request will then be made for the recipient to provide his/her bank account details to allow for funds to be transferred. The recipient may also be asked to pay a handling/processing fee. This fee, if paid, will be lost. Also any details given will probably be used to perpetrate other fraud.
Please Note:
The vast majority of Lottery Scam letters are actually form letters. Only the Lottery numbers and contact information - not the contact name - has been changed. Names, such as PETER LAMBERT, are just made-up names and do not represent real people. The addresses are frequently mail drops, the phone numbers belong to cell phones registered with phony information. Same goes for the email addresses.
As many as 3 different people in any one scam will pose as the same person. This means you may think you are corresponding with only one person, but in reality the replies you receive may be from any number of people in any one fraud ring. It just depends on who has the duty that day.
The same is true of letters from so-called attorneys, government representatives, or any of the many official titles the con artists use to give you confidence. Most of the replies are form letters as well, with the same replies being sent to all the targets (potential victims) answering a "Peter Lambert" form letter. For instance, the "Peter Lambert" form letter may be in use by several different fraud rings, located in different parts of the world.
* A form letter is one where the same identical letter is sent to everyone on a mailing list, or one that covers a particular situation and is ready-made to be sent to anyone asking about that situation.
2007-02-27 01:44:26 · answer #7 · answered by nra_man58 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a variation of the Spanish Lottery Scam. Google your state's attorney general's office or just type in Spanish Lottery Scam. Do not send them any money for "processing fees", "taxes", etc. Report this to Yahoo. Good luck.
2007-02-27 01:41:38 · answer #8 · answered by Marsh 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
DELETE, DELETE, DELETE..you can never win any contest that you have not entered. If you did not register or pay a fee, then where would they get capital for prize earnings. Not to mention the fact that yahoo is an American company, why would they contact you from London?
2007-02-27 02:51:08 · answer #9 · answered by worldtraveler434 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope it is a scam. I'm dealing with that myself. After contacting them I was told to contact Scarlet Courier and was told by them I would have to send them 900 pounds to get my check. I contacted the actual Scarlet Courier and received an e-mail from Sam Brown, who informed me that the Yahoo lottery is indeed a scam. He told me not to have anymore dealings with them.
2007-03-02 05:14:33 · answer #10 · answered by Lou 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Most scams seem "too good to be true" and indeed they are.
Unsolicited emails about lotteries, bank accounts etc. rely on our greed to elicit information that could be used by organised crime, or spammers etc..
You can check out more scams & hoaxes here:
2007-02-27 01:45:10 · answer #11 · answered by echo c 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋