uknational lottery winner

[Unregistered]

Dear [mod edit: John Fairheart - Personal details removed],
I am in reciept of your mail and i must say that you should count yourself extremely lucky to have emerged as one of our winners in this years lucky dip sweepstakes. As you already know your email address was randomly selected along with others from over 125,600 website on the internet. Each email address was attached to be sent are;to a ticket number. Your email address ( [mod edit: John Fairheart - Personal email address removed] ) was selected along with others as winners.
A certificate of prize claims and some vital documents will be sent along side your winnings cheque.The documents

1.WINNING CERTIFICATE FROM UK LOTTERY SWEEPSTAKE PROMOTIONS.
2.WINNERS CHEQUE FOR THE VALUE OF EIGHT HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND POUNDS STERLING
3.CLEAR SOURCE OF FUNDS CERTIFICATE(C.S.F.C.),
4.ANTI-TERRORISM CERTIFICATE(A.T.C),
5.CERTIFICATES OF ORIGIN OF FUND(C.O.F.).

Contact our delivery department with the contact information below for further instructions on how to send the consignment to your location.Please you should also send a copy of your verification form down to the security company as to authenticate your lottery winnings.
Below is the name

[John Fairheart]

Thanks for posting.

This is a typical example of one of the emails sent by Fake Lotteries. We see many hundreds of these daily.

There are some key points to remember about Lottery Winning Emails:-

(a) You cannot win a lottery that you have never purchased a ticket for. Some emails say that you do not have to, but a Lottery by definition is a commercial enterprise that REQUIRES people to buy tickets in order for there to be any prize money. In short, they are lying.

(b) A fraudulent lottery will ask for a fee to allow your 'winnings' to be sent to you. In all cases it is this fee that is the scam. If you pay the money, you loose it forever, and they may come back and ask for more.

(c) Genuine organizations who purport to handle vast sums of money do not use free webmail providers such as yahoo, msn, hotmail etc. It is one of the ways the fraudsters can remain anonymous and untraceable.

Naturally, you should cease communications immediately, and you should not send any money to anyone connected with the email you have received.

If you have more questions, please feel free to ask.

[Unregistered]

microsoft in a blue banner telling me i won in the uk

[Sarah]

I'm afraid the letter you posted is a scam. 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.
No, Microsoft does not run or help sponsor a lottery or any sort of
prize promotion
of that type.

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.

A very common scam is for a scammer to send their victim a check for
goods bought on the internet, or to send these to someone met on a
dating site. When these relate to goods, the checks are usually made
out for more than the selling price of the goods and the scammer
concocts some story or other and asks the seller to send the
difference in value to an associate. Sometimes they may give a reason
for cancelling the deal, and ask you to refund the whole amount of the
check they sent. If it was sent to someone met on a dating site, the
scammer asks that they clear the check through their bank account and
send on the money to a third party.

In all cases when a scammer sends a check, money order or any other
form of negotiable bond these are forged. The scammer relies on the
fact that banks will show the checks to be cleared and credit money to
the victim's account when in actual fact they have only passed a local
inspection and it can take weeks or months before the check bounces.

This means that the victim notices the check has apparently cleared,
sends the goods and forwards the money. When the bank finally realises
that the check is forged, the victim is required to pay back the
amount of the check to the bank and can and will face criminal charges
for forgery. Some victims of this crime have even been sent to jail as
accomplices in fraud.

If a scammer has sent you such a check, money order or bond. Do not
attempt to cash this but take it to your local law enforcement agency
with a printout of the e-mails which have passed between you and the
scammer and report the matter. Please do not keep the check, it is an
offence in both the USA and the UK and may be in other countries, to
have in your possession such a forgery.

If you have already received such a check and have already cashed it.
As well as reporting it to the police, contact your bank immediately
and inform them you think you have been defrauded. If you do, the bank
should be willing to come to an arrangement for paying back any money
you have already spent.

My recommendation is to delete this email, as well as any other lotto
emails you may receive in the future. You will be safe from the
scammer if you block/ignore his emails and requests for your phone
number. He will soon stop bothering you and move on in search for
other victims.