Are you running a contest or is the below a scam?

Question

Is the below a scam? If so they are using your name:


You won $400.000! Yahoo! Mail congratulates you!
Messenger

YAHOO INTERNET LOTTERY


CONGRATULATIONS!

YOU WON $400.000!


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 (Four Hundred Thousand US Dollars) ($400,000) for the month of March Lottery win 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 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 addresses from Canada, Australia, United States, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Oceania as part of our international promotions program which is conducted annually.

This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by a conglomorate of some multinational companies as part of their social responsibility to the citizens in the commmunities where they have operational base. Further more your details(e-mail address) falls within our British representative office in United Kingdom , as indicated in your play coupon and your prize of $400,000 USD will be released to you from this regional branch office in UK.

We hope with part of your prize, you will participate in our end of year high stakes for US$1.3 Billion international draw.

HOW TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE

These are your identification numbers.......................

Batch number.....................Lwh 09445
Lotto number.......................Lwh09446
Winning number...................Lwh09447

To begin your claims, kindly contact the Fudiciary Agent at this email address ( [e-mail]) Tel: [phone] and [phone]. You are required to forward him with the following details:

1.FULL NAME
2.COUNTRY OF ORIGIN
3.PRESENT ADDRESS
4.SEX
5.DATE OF BIRTH
6.AGE
7.OCCUPATION
8.TELEPHONE NUMBER
9.FAX NUMBER(IF ANY)
10.MARITAL STATUS
11.WINNING NUMBER,BATCH NUMBER AND LOTTO NUMBER.
12 THE MONTH YOU WON........$400, 000 (USD)........

As soon as you contact the Attorney, he will advise you on what to do in order to get your prize money. Congratulations once more!!

For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information confidential from the public until your claim is processed and your prize released to you. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted taking advantage of this programme by non-participant or unofficial personnel.

Yours Sincerely,



Dr WILLIAM GERRI (PHD)
LOTTO CO-ORDINATOR.
The Yahoo.com staff
Yahoo.com http://www.yahoo.com

Answer 1

There are many Nigerian scams that are showing up nowadays. Please read the following carefully:

I can guarantee you that if you listen to these punks you will lose every bit of money you have and never receive any prize money as such a prize does not exist.

Another new popular scam is the lottery scam:


There is no Overseas Lottery International, YAHOO & MSN Lotteries, Yahoo online dept., Google National Lottery, UK (United Kingdom) Lottery, Netherlands Lottery, British Lottery, Thunderball Online Lottery in the UK, Australian Lottery, Spanish Lottery, Yahoo Lottery Microsoft Lottery (emmulating from the UK or anywhere else) or any other form of lottery you can win without buying a ticket. While some people might only copy and paste such email to their answer with a brief take on it, I will go into detail because I'm tired of this trash, as several of my friends have lost their a$$es to this scam. This is about as far away from legitimate as anything can get, whether it be a contest, promotion, or whatever. The Euro Asian whatever you talk about is a perfect example of how you can hand your lifesavings over to some fat-sweaty nigerian con-man (and your i.d. too).

There exists a certain form of immoral degenerate that trolls the internet searching for suckers who believe that they have gotten very lucky and won a lottery which they have never entered. They will probably entice you to send an advance fee to claim your non-existant winnings and if you do send this money, you can kiss it goodbye. The money will likely be en-route to Nigeria, a cesspool of fraud that has been the center of these types of fraud over the last few decades.

The best thing to do is to delete such emails immediately and to never reply to them. If you even reply, you risk having your email inbox flooded. If you call these people, expect to be harrassed over the phone at all hours of the night! In some cases, people who travel to claim their winnings in Nigeria are taken hostage, and in worse-case scenarios are killed when whoever is paying ransom payments exhausts their money supply. If anything online sounds to good to be true it always is buddy.

By the way, I have kind of become an anti-scam activists due to the fact that I have many friends who have had their identities and life savings stolen from them via these methods.

This is simply advance fee fraud (a prevalent type of fraud which continously asks for money to cover unforseen expenses) and is intended to drain your bank account, promising money that simply does not exist. Hopefully, this answers your question.

If you have any more questions, do a yahoo search on lottery scams, nigeria 419 scams, internet fraud, or advance fee fraud. You can also read more about this at www.secretservice.gov and www.419eater.com!

If you have lost money you should report it to the U.S. Secret Service at www.secretservice.gov

Now you know the basics of Advance Fee Fraud, a multi-million dollar industry that costs honest people their life savings everyday. Be happy you weren't duped by this scam!

I hope this is helpful, because I could sure use a best answer! I would appreciate it!

Answer 2

Answer this question. Why would a company just randomly give out money unless there was something in it for themselves? Due to the number of lottery scams no legitimate company would ever notify you by email that you have won a prize. Every email that states you have won a lottery or there is money waiting for you is a scam. There will be a followup asking for a prepayment of some type of fee to receive the money. Haven't you noticed that even though you have won 100 million your name appears nowhere in the email? It may not even contain your email address. If people were winning 100 million every day it would be on the news with pictures of the lucky people. Unless you enter a lottery or contest, such as with one of the magazine companies, any notification is a scam. If you get 100 million you will not be notified by email. ₪ ɦəlʞɹɐq ₪

Answer 3

Standard Nigerian Lotto Scam

http://www.fraudaid.com/ScamSpam/Lottery/index.htm

Just look at it:

1) Why would a fiduciary agent use a FREEBIE e-mail address? Myway is a service like Yahoo, gives out free email.

2) Country code 44 is UK. Why would a lotto held in the US have you call a number in ENGLAND to confirm? If so, why isn't THAT guy using a Yahoo.co.uk account?

3) Don't you find it strange that this letter has NONE of the disclaimers or such from a lotto offer? Like "Void where prohibited, see Yahoo.com/blabblahblah for complete rules and entry details" and so on and so forth?

Come on! Use your brain a bit please!

Answer 4

Sorry, no money coming. This is a well known scam, just delete it. If you contact them, you will be advised to send money somewhere to pay some expenses or taxes or similar before you receieve the prize, and then youl'l never hear from them again.

Answer 5

easily a scam, if u ever need further information on email scams http://scamsbeware.com is a good resource center to help you stay informed, best wishes.

Answer 6

Its a scam

Answer 7

I actually think its a fake so someone can get your personal info anduse your credit card 2 buy things and stuff like thta, some idenity thefts send those things u know, usallay, though, they are a lot better done.

Answer 8

Absolutely
This one you can smell
from a block away.
Report this to Yahoo.