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The scam letter is the principal form of scam communications from African countries such as Nigeria. The scam letter is usually sent through email. It can have a variety of themes such as the one here. Although many scam letters come from African countries such as Nigeria, Benin, Ghana and Ivory Coast or Cote d'Ivoire, this particular scam letter appears to have come from the UK. The scam letter presented here is more long winded than average. It goes into a lengthy discussion about how the potential scam victim's email address had lucky numbers attached to it, how email addresses were selected from every continent, except Antarctica (it must be difficult to scam a penguin), and how the software people of the major companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft contributed. It is kind of odd how Google was left out. Some other ways that scam letters such as this one can be identified are by the types of errors that are either left in intentionally or go undetected because the scammer does not have a complete grasp of spelling, grammar and meaning of words. The scam victim is required to send a database to the scammer which by the way can be downloaded for free from various websites. Many of the lottery scam letters seem to come from the UK, especially London, England. Once in a while, they claim to originate in Spain or from Yahoo, Microsoft or Coca-Cola separately instead of being combined into a single scam letter as in this instance.
SUBJECT: CLAIM YOUR WINNING PRIZE
REF NO.: UK/61230235017/08 RE- WINNING NOTIFICATION / FINAL NOTICE We are happily announce to you the draw number 620 from our new year free online lottery version of the UK NATIONAL LOTTO PROMOTION, which held on the 18th of February 2008. It is our pleasure to inform you that your EMAIL ADDRESS has emerged one of the Category "A" winner from this free online lottery version of the UK NATIONAL LOTTO PROMOTION. This result is released to you today and your e-mail address is attached to ticket number: 014-026-433-162, with serial number 3217-22 drew the lucky numbers 80-62-14-53-11-70, which subsequently won you the lottery in the third category. From a total cash prize of Twenty Five Million, Five Hundred Thousand-American Dollars ($US25, 500,000) shared amongst the first seventeen- (17) lucky winners in this category “A". You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of One Million; Five Hundred Thousand-America Dollars ($US1, 500,000) credited to the file REF NO. UK/61230235017/08. As a category "A" winner, all participants email addresses for this free online lotto version were Worldwide extracted and selected randomly through the computer ballot system. The winners email addresses were extracted from over 100,000 emails from Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Europe, North America, South America, Central America and Asia, as Part of our International Promotions Program, which is Conducted quarterly. After the computer ballot of our International Promotions Program, only seventeen- (17) lucky emails were emerged winner in this category and therefore both are to each receive payouts of One Million, Five Hundred Thousand-American Dollars ($US1, 500,000) from a total cash prize of Twenty Five Million, Five Hundred Thousand-American Dollars ($US25, 500,000), for this category “A”. This lottery program was organized by the philanthropist group of computer software’s manufacturers here in U.K. while the program was promoted and sponsored by the eminent personalities such as, Bill Gates of Microsoft Inc, Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard, Glen Boreham of IBM Australia Limited, Yahoo Inc., Hotmail Inc., Multi Choice Company, and many other corporate Organizations as the program was organized to improve the use of computer software and also for the benefit of every user of yahoo, hotmail and Microsoft software. However, find below is the contact information of our Category "A" fiduciary agent who is your claim’s agent whom you will contact for the claim of your won prize.
MR. KEVIN.J.SOLOMON To file your claim and also for the due processing of your won prize, you are advised to promptly send your database to our aforementioned Category "A" fiduciary agent who is your claiming agent, in accordance with the below stated descriptions so as to enable your won prize to be appropriately and promptly processed.
YOUR FULL NAME: With the your database information being completely forwarded to your claim agent as requested above, then the processing of your won prize will commence immediately, while your winnings Certificate / further relevant certifications concerning your payment accreditation will be sent to you after proper verification and authentication of your claims information. MORE IMPORTANTLY, all winners are advised to state clearly to us the MODE/OPTION of their choice with which they will want their won prizes to be received by them, either they will prefer to go to our cash payment office in Spain for the personal collection of their won prize or they will want the Certified Bank Cheque of their won prize to be couriered to them at their respective Country. This is very important for us to know prior to the processing of the winner’s won prize’s, not only to avoid any misrepresentation / unwarranted situation to the processing of the winner’s won prize but the said MODE/OPTION of the winners’ choice will also be in form of agreement to be made between the winners and the UK National Lotto Promotion concerning the mode of the won prize receiving. In view of this, your full physical address (office or home address) is compulsory to be forwarded to us for the postal delivery of your Certified Bank Chequed if you will want the Certified Bank Cheque of your won prize to be couriered to you in your Country, while you need not to forward your address to us again if you will prefer to go to our cash payment office in Spain for the cash collection of your won prize. Finally, due to the mix up of some numbers and names, and for security reasons of the winners’ won prize, all winners are advised to maintain the strictest level of confidentiality until the end of proceedings to circumvent problems associated with double claims, hence you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is being processed and your won prize is being received by you as this is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements, so be warned. Congratulations to you once again from all our staffs for being lucky to be selected in our free online lottery promotional program. At your disposal, we remain. Sincerely,
MRS. VIVIAN THOMAS Note: Any winner who is under age of 20 would be required to adopt parental guidelines prior to claim proceedings. This sample scam letter is for demonstration purposes. Do not respond to this scam communication or any other type of scam letter. Report a scam to authorities such as the email service provider and the FBI. Scam letters such as these should be avoided once recognized. Sometimes, the scam letter might lead to other types of scams like the check scam or identity theft if special forms are filled out or sensitive information is given out over the telephone. In addition to their recurring themes and errors, scam letters can also be spotted by the request for confidentiality. Return to Phishing Internet Scams Home Page » Return to Scam Letter Home Page |