Lottery scam quick guide: it's a scam if...

  • you win any lottery where you didn't buy a ticket! It's really that easy! It's not just too good to be true: it's bait in a trap!
  • you receive a generous grant out of the blue. Sadly (but not surprisingly) there aren't any benevolent people regularly throwing around millions of pounds/dollars/euros to randomly chosen people. This is just the lottery scam without the ticket.
  • they send you partial payment in the form of a cheque, money order, or direct bank transfer and want you to pay them fees out of that money. They're playing you for a sucker: cheques are frequently forged, and direct transfers made by compromising some poor schmuck's online banking service. You'll wind up a victim of fraud, or a party to it.
  • they want you to send them any money of any sort for any reason. They might try to say there are courier fees or taxes to cover. They're lying. Call their bluff and tell them to take the fees out themselves -- they'll never ever agree, because they can't defraud you unless money is making the reverse trip from you to them somehow.

Saturday, September 03, 2005

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

South Australia Lotteries.
S.A Lotteries Melbourne Corporate Office
Level 3, 54-56 Cambridge Terrace
PO Box 3145 Melbourne, Australia.

Sir/adam,

LOTTERY WINNER!

This is to inform you of the result of the South Australia Lotteries draws
held on the 31st, August, 2005. Your e-mail address attached to Serial
#:01103938151 and e-mail code: 917926-8 drew a cash prize of €1,000,000.00,
in the 2nd class of the draws. You will be paid €1,000,000.00(One Million
Euros).
Because of incessant mix up in cash prize pay-outs, we will advise that you
to keep your winning information confidential until your money
(€1,000,000.00) has been fully remitted to you by our accredited Agent
(Deutsche bank, Amsterdam-Netherlands). Please, you must strictly adhere to
this measure to avoid loss of your cash prize - this measure is put in
place to forestall abuse of this program by other participants.
It's also important to inform you that these draws were conducted
privately. Winners were selected through an internet ballot system, from
extracted e-mail addresses of over 60,000 people around the world. This
private program is sponsored and promoted by South Australia Lotteries.
Congratulations once again for this lucky win. We hope you will use part of
your money to participate in our next draws; the jackpot cash prize is
€55million.
Remember, you must claim your cash prize not later than 14 working days
from today. If you fail to claim your cash prize after the expiration of
this deadline, the unclaimed cash prize will be forfeited by you - we will
include it in our next sweepstake.
Please, in order to avoid unnecessary delays and complications remember to
quote your personal/winning information (Serial #: 01103938151 and
e-mail code: 917926-8) in all your correspondence with our paying bank.
Congratulations once again from all members of South Australia Lotteries.
To get your cash prize released to you immediately, please kindly contact
our Paying Bank ( Deutsche Bank, Amsterdam-Netherlands)
Send them the following:
(a). Your names.
(b) Your contact telephone and fax numbers.
(c) Your contact Address.
(d) Your winning numbers (Serial #: 01103938151 and e-mail code: 917926-8).
(v) Amount won.
Send the information to:
Contact person: Henriette Mark(Mrs.).
Director: Private banking and Foreign Remittance,
Deutsche Bank, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
E-mail: custservices@netscape.net
Tel/Fax: (+ 3120) 555 4466.
Fax: (+3184) 750 4579.
Congratulations once again.
Yours in service,
Trevor Hall.
CEO/Lottery Coordinator.

1 comment:

Spotter said...

It's odd that an Australian lottery is paying out one million Euros. Last time I checked, they were still using Australian Dollars. Anyhow, what I really wanted to say was that I received two copies of this particular spam. The second one had subject "LOTTERY", and arrived about an hour and a half after the original.