please advice me

[Unregistered]

I reacieved an email as follows:

Dear Sir/Madam,
We are delighted to inform you of your prize release
on the 24th of February, 2006 from the Universal Lottery
programme. Which is fully based on an electronic
selection of winners using their e-mail
addresses.Your name was attached to ticket number;
564062826 8067492802 serial number 89413237112 This
batch draws the lucky numbers as follows
4-13-55-48-34bonus number 17,which consequently won
the lottery in the second category. You here by have
been approved a lump sum pay of US$1,000,000.00 (ONE
MILLIONDOLLARS) in cash credit file ref: ILP/HW
47509/02 from the total cash prize of
US$8,000,000.00 shared amongst eight lucky winners
in this category. All participant were selected
through a computer balloting system drawn form 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 European
representative office in London, as indicated in
your play coupon and your prize of US$1,000,000.00
will be released to you from this regional branch
office in London. 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: Simply contact our fiducial agent,Mr.
MITCHEAL WALTER through,mitcheal12_walter@yahoo.com to
file for your claim . Please quote your reference,
batch and winning number which can be found on the
top left corner of this notification as well as your
full name, address and telephone number to help
locate your file easily. 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. Note, all winnings MUST be claimed by
20th of March, 2006; otherwise all funds will be
returned as Unclaimed and eventually donated to
charity .
Congratulations once again on your winnings!!!
Best Regards Carol Smith(co-ordinator)
PLEASE DO REPLY TO THIS EMAIL.CONTACT YOUR CLAIMS
AGENT:mitcheal12_walter@yahoo.com ANY BREACH OF
RULES ON THE PART OF THE WINNERS WILL RESULT TO DISQUALIFICATION.

sincerely

SEAN JACKSON ESQ.(ATTORNEY)
ONYEAGBA ANTHONY (FINANCIAL DIRECTOR)
MITCHEAL WALTER. (FIDUCIAL AGENT)

[Nyla]

Hello,

Welcome to Fraudwatchers. The letter you posted is a typical lottery scam format. The lottery is a fraud.

Looking for the Lottery name, "Universal Lottery Programme", on Google turns up several copies of the same letter, labelled as a known scam. The other red flags are

1)The lottery claims to draw winners from a pool of email addresses. No legitimate lottery draws winners this way. You must actively enter a lottery to win, typically by buying a ticket. The jackpots real lotteries award have to come from somewhere.

2) The "companies" supposedly sponsoring this lottery are not named. This prevents you from contacting them to confirm their involvement.

3) The lottery claim agent has a free Yahoo address. No legitimate lottery uses a free email address as a business contact address.

4) Lots of emphasis on charity. The lottery claims that the companies are sponsoring due to social responsibility, and say unclaimed winnings go to charity. Lotteries tend to be very much a "for profit" business.

5) They urge you to keep it secret. They don't want anyone warning you it sounds like a fraud, actually.

6) There is a short time frame for claiming. They hope to pressure you into acting quickly, without thinking it through.

7) Finally, they're asking for money. This practice of asking for an "advance fee" in order to claim a lottery or sweepstakes win, is illegal in the United States, the United Kingdom, and for that matter, most countries. You can be sure that if a company in the U.S. or U.K. ask for a "claim fee", "taxes", or a "processing fee", they are either breaking the law or more likely, scammers.

So, to sum up, the lottery is definitely not legitimate. If you pay the money, you'll only end up losing it. Thanks for visiting the site, and keep safe.