Number of lottery scam e-mails have increased for quite some time. Every time I receive such email, I just laugh. There would be emails that say that you’ve won millions of dollars for a lottery you never entered. These jokers at times use the name of a legitimate lottery as part of the scam. If you respond to them, they will ask you to pay some fee or fees to claim your prize. A legitimate lottery does not ask this. Once you have paid the money they will simply disappear with your money and your chance of any type of recovery is essentially zero. One recent example of such Mail from “Coca Cola”:
THE COCA COLA COMPANY
PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD
DEPT:COCA COLA AVENUE
STAMFORD BRIDGE LONDON.
SW1V 3DW UNITED KINGDOMTHE COCA COLA COMPANY OFFICIAL PRIZE NOTIFICATION
We are pleased to inform you of the result of the just concluded
annual
final draws held on (17th March, 2007) by Coca-Cola in conjunction
with the British American Tobacco Worldwide Promotion.Your email was
among the 5 Lucky winners who won £1000,000.00{One million Great
Britain Pounds} each in the THE COCA\COLA COMPANY 2007 PROMO.However the results were released today 19th March, 2007 and your
email was attached to ticket number (7PWYZ2006) and ballot number
(BT:12052006/20) The online draws was conducted by a random selection of
email addresses from an exclusive list of 29,031,643 E-mail addresses
of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated
random computer search from the internet.
However, no tickets were sold but all email addresses were assigned
to different ticket numbers for representation and privacy.The selection process was carried out through random selection in our
computerized email selection machine (TOPAZ) .This Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and also
licensed by the The International Association of Gaming Regulators
(IAGR).This lottery is the 3rd of its kind and we intend to sensitize the
public.To begin the claim processing of your prize you are to contact the
fiduciary agent via email as stated below:Mr David Morgan
Email:enquireoffice3@yahoo.co.uk
TEL: +447011128981
TEL: +447031946023
TEL: +447011137631
FAX: +44871253060022 Garden Close, Stamford,
Lincs,PE9 2YP,London
United KingdomDue to possible mix up of some numbers and email contacts, we ask
that you keep this award strictly from public notice until your claim
has been processed and your money remitted. This is part of our
security protocol to avoid double claiming or unscrupulous acts by some
participants of this program.*Staff of Coca-Cola and the British American Tobacco Company are not
to partake in this PROMOTION.Accept our hearty congratulations once again!
Yours Faithfully,
Management.