Crux Polaris
14 November 2005, 09:00
THE LOTTERY SCAM – A BRIEF DESCRIPTION
The lottery scam is a well-known version of Advance Fee Fraud – or 419 fraud. This scam is usually conducted through e-mail and telephone, with the initial contact being an e-mail claiming to be from some free lottery site, or an obscure national lottery somewhere.
The e-mail will proclaim that the recipient has won the first prize (usually) in the lottery, and that they need to reply with some information in order to be able to collect the prize. The victim then sends the information he is asked for, which will then often be used for the purpose of Identity Theft. Keep in mind, that the scammers will often ask for scans of passports, drivers licenses or similar ID documents, which will then be used not only for ID Theft, but also to convince future victims of the legitimacy of the lottery.
The next stage in the scam is to get the victim to contact the “Prize Department†or something of the sort, so that the proper steps can be taken on the path to collecting the prize. This is where the advance fees enter the stage, so to speak. There will be “clearance feesâ€, customs, bank fees, certification fees, documentation fees, transfer fees and so on, until the victim catches on. As with all other forms of 419 fraud, the perpetrators will not stop before the victim is thoroughly cleaned out, or he/she catches on to the scheme.
The lottery scam is a simple one usually, and does not take much efforts on the part of the scammer. Most people who surf the internet have seen ads for free lotteries and the likes from time to time, and many will lure themselves into thinking that they have entered one, and forgotten.
There's a bottom line here, and that is that you cannot win a lottery you never entered! Certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars or Euros, or millions, as some scammers will proclaim. It just isn't possible. Another important point that concerns lotteries in the EU (i.e. the European Union); the responsible party cannot charge the winner fees for claiming the prize, and no legitimate lottery will, either. Again, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
This article Copyright: Fraudwatchers.org 2005
Written by Crux Polaris
The lottery scam is a well-known version of Advance Fee Fraud – or 419 fraud. This scam is usually conducted through e-mail and telephone, with the initial contact being an e-mail claiming to be from some free lottery site, or an obscure national lottery somewhere.
The e-mail will proclaim that the recipient has won the first prize (usually) in the lottery, and that they need to reply with some information in order to be able to collect the prize. The victim then sends the information he is asked for, which will then often be used for the purpose of Identity Theft. Keep in mind, that the scammers will often ask for scans of passports, drivers licenses or similar ID documents, which will then be used not only for ID Theft, but also to convince future victims of the legitimacy of the lottery.
The next stage in the scam is to get the victim to contact the “Prize Department†or something of the sort, so that the proper steps can be taken on the path to collecting the prize. This is where the advance fees enter the stage, so to speak. There will be “clearance feesâ€, customs, bank fees, certification fees, documentation fees, transfer fees and so on, until the victim catches on. As with all other forms of 419 fraud, the perpetrators will not stop before the victim is thoroughly cleaned out, or he/she catches on to the scheme.
The lottery scam is a simple one usually, and does not take much efforts on the part of the scammer. Most people who surf the internet have seen ads for free lotteries and the likes from time to time, and many will lure themselves into thinking that they have entered one, and forgotten.
There's a bottom line here, and that is that you cannot win a lottery you never entered! Certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars or Euros, or millions, as some scammers will proclaim. It just isn't possible. Another important point that concerns lotteries in the EU (i.e. the European Union); the responsible party cannot charge the winner fees for claiming the prize, and no legitimate lottery will, either. Again, if it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.
This article Copyright: Fraudwatchers.org 2005
Written by Crux Polaris