John Fairheart
21 January 2006, 20:57
UK Lottery E-mail Scams Warning
December 2005
By 'John Fairheart (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/member.php?u=12)' for fraudwatchers.org
Source: MerseyWorld (Lottery) (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam.html)
Introduction
The following information has been taken directly from the MerseyWorld (Lottery) website, for the benefit of our many readers and potential victims of Fake Lottery scams. The original article can be found [ here (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam.html) ].
Readers should note one very important point. The Lottery pages at MerseyWorld are NOT a lottery, they are the results of UK National Lottery draws and are displayed for informational purposes and statistical data.
Richard K. Lloyd writes...
There has been an ever-growing number of UK lottery e-mail scams that have been turning up both in my mailbox and the mailboxes of visitors to this site - my first piece of advice is that you should always ignore them and delete them. Sadly, not everyone does, so I'll explain below how these scams operate. Note: I don't want copies of your scam e-mails sent to me - there's nothing whatsoever I can do about them!
Firstly, the scammer has to construct a reasonably convincing-sounding "you've won the lottery" e-mail, so they're now tending to throw in verifiable correct facts in there to make it sound legitimate. The three most common things they put in are:
The draw number, date, winning numbers and jackpot amount of a recent UK lottery draw. Note that it won't always be the latest one - quite often, it's a few weeks old. Why would they take so long to e-mail you that you've you such a huge prize? Answer: they're scammers and are probably a few weeks behind sending out bulk e-mails to potential victims with info from previous draws to catch up to the most recent one...
The name and/or address of something legitimate that's lottery related. Favourites include Camelot's full postal address (both the Olympia Way one in London and the P.O. Box one in Watford have been used) and, quite irritatingly, my name (Richard K. Lloyd), which people Google for and hence I get a constant stream of people asking if the scam e-mail they received is legitimate or not (and if you think about it, why ask me - what credentials do I have to verify such e-mails ?!).
A graphical attachment is often included with the e-mail - this can range from the blue National Lottery "crossed fingers" official logo (which you have to get permission from Camelot to use), an embedded graphic of this site's lottery balls for a particular draw (the cheek!), a scanned copy of the (fake) "winning" cheque or a bogus "winners certificate".
Of course, they then blow this to smithereens by using a free Webmail-based e-mail account (e.g. yahoo.co.uk, hotmail.com and so on) to send their scam e-mail from - do you really think Camelot (who run the UK lottery) would ever send e-mail to end-users from a Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail account? Nope, they never would and this should be enough to stop you dead in your tracks and delete the scam e-mail.
It should be noted here that the only legal place to buy UK lottery tickets (and, yes, you have to buy them - there is no such thing as a "free UK lottery sweepstake" in existence) on the Internet is at the official UK lottery site located at http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ and even then you need a UK address and a UK debit card. Any other site that says it sells UK lottery tickets is breaking the law. If you have not bought your ticket from either an official UK lottery physical terminal (e.g. in a UK newsagent, UK supermarket etc.) or from the official site mentioned above, then you *cannot* win a UK lottery prize.
Also note that opening an account on the official site mentioned above and buying UK lottery tickets online from said site is the only way you can be notified by e-mail that your UK lottery ticket has won a prize. Any other person/organisation sending you e-mail saying you've won a (usually large) prize on the UK lottery is lying, it's as simple as that.
The first e-mail you will receive will usually avoid mentioning any "processing/claim/courier fee" that you'll have pay to them - this is to try to hook you in to the scam and not scare you off right away. Instead, the scammer will ask for as much personal information as possible (full name, address, date of birth etc.) - this is useful for them if you get so deep into the scam that they might want to try forging documents with your info on them. Don't give them any info (you deleted that e-mail anyway didn't you ?).
The scammer will often say "don't tell anyone about this win" (by "anyone", they probably mean the police, so that they won't be tracked down and prosecuted !), which is a very silly instruction for them give if you think about it. Who are they to say who you can and can't tell that you've "won" the lottery ?
If you are foolish enough to have started up a phone or e-mail conversation with the scammers, they will inevitably try to get a "claim fee" from you to process the lottery win. Let me see - you've "won" a lottery you never entered in the first place and now you're expected to pay possibly thousands of pounds to someone you've never heard of to get hold of "winnings" that they provide no proof whatsoever even exists ?! If you haven't twigged it's a scam at this point, you're quite a naive person to say the least.
Sadly, if you have fallen for the scam and actually sent them money, then you probably have no chance of recovering the money you sent, especially if it's to a different country (that fact that someone outside the UK would be involved in a UK lottery really should have set alarm bells ringing). If it's within your own country, perhaps contacting the police might be a start or possibly the standards trading officers for the county involved, but I don't hold out much hope of ever getting your money back.
Some more reading on this subject to further enlighten you:
The official Camelot site's Security Advice (http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/information.do?info=commonscams)
Months after I put this page up warning about scams, Camelot finally did something similar. Because of their tardiness (especially poor since scam e-mails often mention the official site and Camelot's postal address!), I've been fielding way too many "I'd like to claim my prize" e-mails, which hopefully will now go to the official site Webmaster and not me (update: nope, still getting a stream of queries about scam e-mails, ho hum).
The UK Government's Consumer Direct Scams Factsheet (http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/goods-service/scams/fs_u02.shtml)
Basically says the same thing as this page (don't communicate with them and delete any messages from them). Note how there's nothing about reporting them to the authorities (little point, because they're usually non-UK-based, use fake names and free Webmail accounts).
BBC News: How not to win a million (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3808397.stm)
Interesting article, including some bloke from the Midlands who was conned out of almost 20,000 Euros. (also available here (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=41))
The Dutch Lottery Scam (http://www.stopecg.org/lottery.htm)
Recently made even more infamous by an amusing Egg advertisement (http://eggzines.egg.com/tvads/) on UK TV (Windows Media or Quicktime required for the ad). This page is handy because it gives you some useful advice on how to report advance fee frauds.
Fraudwatch International's lottery scams (http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/internetfraud/lottery.htm) section
A shockingly high number of lottery fraudsters out there!
Please note - although scammers have used my name in their fraudulent e-mails, I am NOT involved in any way with any of these scams. Having read this page, I hope you realise that I don't need to be e-mailed about these scams - if they use my name and claim you've won the lottery, they are fraudulent and should be ignored. I did get one very funny UK lottery scam e-mail (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam_Funny.html) though which I think is worth sharing with you , but sadly, it was the exception to the rule.
FURTHER READING:
Types of 419 Advance Fee Fraud - Lottery (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=642#lotto)
Lottery Frauds - A Brief Description (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255)
News: Woman duped of $800 in Lottery scam (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=775)
419 Email/Letter Formats > Scam Lottery walk-through (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=229)
Copyright © Richard K. Lloyd (http://lottery.merseyworld.com) & Connect Internet Solutions Limited 2005
Part of MerseyWorld (http://www.merseyworld.com/) - promoting Liverpool and its surrounding regions.
Published to fraudwatchers.org by 'John Fairheart (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/member.php?u=12)' for the benefit of visitors to this site.
December 2005
By 'John Fairheart (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/member.php?u=12)' for fraudwatchers.org
Source: MerseyWorld (Lottery) (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam.html)
Introduction
The following information has been taken directly from the MerseyWorld (Lottery) website, for the benefit of our many readers and potential victims of Fake Lottery scams. The original article can be found [ here (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam.html) ].
Readers should note one very important point. The Lottery pages at MerseyWorld are NOT a lottery, they are the results of UK National Lottery draws and are displayed for informational purposes and statistical data.
Richard K. Lloyd writes...
There has been an ever-growing number of UK lottery e-mail scams that have been turning up both in my mailbox and the mailboxes of visitors to this site - my first piece of advice is that you should always ignore them and delete them. Sadly, not everyone does, so I'll explain below how these scams operate. Note: I don't want copies of your scam e-mails sent to me - there's nothing whatsoever I can do about them!
Firstly, the scammer has to construct a reasonably convincing-sounding "you've won the lottery" e-mail, so they're now tending to throw in verifiable correct facts in there to make it sound legitimate. The three most common things they put in are:
The draw number, date, winning numbers and jackpot amount of a recent UK lottery draw. Note that it won't always be the latest one - quite often, it's a few weeks old. Why would they take so long to e-mail you that you've you such a huge prize? Answer: they're scammers and are probably a few weeks behind sending out bulk e-mails to potential victims with info from previous draws to catch up to the most recent one...
The name and/or address of something legitimate that's lottery related. Favourites include Camelot's full postal address (both the Olympia Way one in London and the P.O. Box one in Watford have been used) and, quite irritatingly, my name (Richard K. Lloyd), which people Google for and hence I get a constant stream of people asking if the scam e-mail they received is legitimate or not (and if you think about it, why ask me - what credentials do I have to verify such e-mails ?!).
A graphical attachment is often included with the e-mail - this can range from the blue National Lottery "crossed fingers" official logo (which you have to get permission from Camelot to use), an embedded graphic of this site's lottery balls for a particular draw (the cheek!), a scanned copy of the (fake) "winning" cheque or a bogus "winners certificate".
Of course, they then blow this to smithereens by using a free Webmail-based e-mail account (e.g. yahoo.co.uk, hotmail.com and so on) to send their scam e-mail from - do you really think Camelot (who run the UK lottery) would ever send e-mail to end-users from a Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail account? Nope, they never would and this should be enough to stop you dead in your tracks and delete the scam e-mail.
It should be noted here that the only legal place to buy UK lottery tickets (and, yes, you have to buy them - there is no such thing as a "free UK lottery sweepstake" in existence) on the Internet is at the official UK lottery site located at http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/ and even then you need a UK address and a UK debit card. Any other site that says it sells UK lottery tickets is breaking the law. If you have not bought your ticket from either an official UK lottery physical terminal (e.g. in a UK newsagent, UK supermarket etc.) or from the official site mentioned above, then you *cannot* win a UK lottery prize.
Also note that opening an account on the official site mentioned above and buying UK lottery tickets online from said site is the only way you can be notified by e-mail that your UK lottery ticket has won a prize. Any other person/organisation sending you e-mail saying you've won a (usually large) prize on the UK lottery is lying, it's as simple as that.
The first e-mail you will receive will usually avoid mentioning any "processing/claim/courier fee" that you'll have pay to them - this is to try to hook you in to the scam and not scare you off right away. Instead, the scammer will ask for as much personal information as possible (full name, address, date of birth etc.) - this is useful for them if you get so deep into the scam that they might want to try forging documents with your info on them. Don't give them any info (you deleted that e-mail anyway didn't you ?).
The scammer will often say "don't tell anyone about this win" (by "anyone", they probably mean the police, so that they won't be tracked down and prosecuted !), which is a very silly instruction for them give if you think about it. Who are they to say who you can and can't tell that you've "won" the lottery ?
If you are foolish enough to have started up a phone or e-mail conversation with the scammers, they will inevitably try to get a "claim fee" from you to process the lottery win. Let me see - you've "won" a lottery you never entered in the first place and now you're expected to pay possibly thousands of pounds to someone you've never heard of to get hold of "winnings" that they provide no proof whatsoever even exists ?! If you haven't twigged it's a scam at this point, you're quite a naive person to say the least.
Sadly, if you have fallen for the scam and actually sent them money, then you probably have no chance of recovering the money you sent, especially if it's to a different country (that fact that someone outside the UK would be involved in a UK lottery really should have set alarm bells ringing). If it's within your own country, perhaps contacting the police might be a start or possibly the standards trading officers for the county involved, but I don't hold out much hope of ever getting your money back.
Some more reading on this subject to further enlighten you:
The official Camelot site's Security Advice (http://www.national-lottery.co.uk/player/information.do?info=commonscams)
Months after I put this page up warning about scams, Camelot finally did something similar. Because of their tardiness (especially poor since scam e-mails often mention the official site and Camelot's postal address!), I've been fielding way too many "I'd like to claim my prize" e-mails, which hopefully will now go to the official site Webmaster and not me (update: nope, still getting a stream of queries about scam e-mails, ho hum).
The UK Government's Consumer Direct Scams Factsheet (http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/goods-service/scams/fs_u02.shtml)
Basically says the same thing as this page (don't communicate with them and delete any messages from them). Note how there's nothing about reporting them to the authorities (little point, because they're usually non-UK-based, use fake names and free Webmail accounts).
BBC News: How not to win a million (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3808397.stm)
Interesting article, including some bloke from the Midlands who was conned out of almost 20,000 Euros. (also available here (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=41))
The Dutch Lottery Scam (http://www.stopecg.org/lottery.htm)
Recently made even more infamous by an amusing Egg advertisement (http://eggzines.egg.com/tvads/) on UK TV (Windows Media or Quicktime required for the ad). This page is handy because it gives you some useful advice on how to report advance fee frauds.
Fraudwatch International's lottery scams (http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/internetfraud/lottery.htm) section
A shockingly high number of lottery fraudsters out there!
Please note - although scammers have used my name in their fraudulent e-mails, I am NOT involved in any way with any of these scams. Having read this page, I hope you realise that I don't need to be e-mailed about these scams - if they use my name and claim you've won the lottery, they are fraudulent and should be ignored. I did get one very funny UK lottery scam e-mail (http://lottery.merseyworld.com/Info/Scam_Funny.html) though which I think is worth sharing with you , but sadly, it was the exception to the rule.
FURTHER READING:
Types of 419 Advance Fee Fraud - Lottery (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=642#lotto)
Lottery Frauds - A Brief Description (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=255)
News: Woman duped of $800 in Lottery scam (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=775)
419 Email/Letter Formats > Scam Lottery walk-through (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/showthread.php?t=229)
Copyright © Richard K. Lloyd (http://lottery.merseyworld.com) & Connect Internet Solutions Limited 2005
Part of MerseyWorld (http://www.merseyworld.com/) - promoting Liverpool and its surrounding regions.
Published to fraudwatchers.org by 'John Fairheart (http://www.fraudwatchers.org/forums/member.php?u=12)' for the benefit of visitors to this site.