I received an email

[Unregistered]

i recieved a e-maIL SAYING I WON A MILLION DOLLARS ,and to contact agent dr.mitcheal walter at +447031842323 ,is this a scam .

[Frazzle]

Did you buy a lottery ticket?

If not, its a scam.

[FW Admin]

The telephone number you have quoted is one supplied by a Telecomms company in the UK that indicates this to be either a roaming/mobile number or a VOIP telecomms solution. This means that the receiver of any calls to that number can be virtually anywhere in the world, and as such is untraceable.

Any legitimate lottery corporation will never provide such a number; they would always provide a traceable, fixed land line number in all cases and would not consider having such an anonymous means of communication.

[monicaguru]

[QUOTE=Unregistered;3461]my cousin recieved an e-maIL SAYING I WON A MILLION DOLLARS ,and to contact agent toyota international lotto.it stated that his funds have been remitted from there &would be transferred in 72 hours in his account.after that there was an e-mail from the united nation fund transfer survelliance saying that a stop order has been implied & to get my funds transferred he will have to pay 850usd.

kindly inform me that is this a genuine case or a fraud?

[Sarah]

Hello, Monica and Unregistered, and welcome to the board.

To answer Monica's question (and elaborate on what Frazzle said), yes, it's definitely fake. Some of the major red flags include the fact that legitimate lotteries do not notify winners by email, you cannot win a lottery if you did not enter/buy a ticket. There is no such thing as an international lottery. The complexity of gaming/gambling laws from country to country prevents such a thing.

If you answer the email, after one or two email exchanges with the so-called "lottery officials" or "claims agent," perhaps accompanied by some official looking but fake documents, you'll be asked to pay fees for "taxes" or "handling" or some other reason. This is the scam - you pay the fees and never see any winnings, mainly because there are none to see.

Both are fake.