Winning a million $$$ on the internet
The latest email scam
Recently, I went away for three days without my laptop and came back to 300 emails. And you can bet in that pile I was told I'd won two million pounds on some lottery from overseas.
This is the latest scam, saying you've won x dollars and all you have to do is contact them and send your contact details to make your claim. I replied to one of these emails just to see have far they would go.
First I got a very official looking email back saying congratulations again, you have won two million pounds. They gave me a file reference number, batch number and all the bells and whistles you can image. The email read on to say the third category draw under which I won is a promotional draw so I hadn't needed a purchased ticket to participate. The names and email addresses of individuals and companies are selected from various lottery companies email databases from around the world and are then entered into the draw.
The third category, of which I was a winner, is funded from the proceeds of ticket sales in the first category draw and second category draws also organised by British Lotto Plus.
Note that they say they act as financial handlers for British Lotto Plus. They also claim that they are the claims agents in charge of the disbursement of the lottery winnings and claims payout.
I was informed that I was the winner of £2,200,000.00, and that it was already in their possession and would be processed upon my meeting their requirements. They requested provision of all necessary information including the submission of a Lottery Winnings Claim Form and, here's the big one, payment of a stipulated processing fee. This fee they say is to cover such things as expenses, costs to transfer the winnings, documents, prize certificate, account details, insurance of winning documents, handling charges etc.
They asked me to confirm receipt of their email so they could instruct me on how I go about the claims process. They also said that winners have a right to any information they require.
I then got a final ‘congratulations' and was told they were waiting for my confirmation email. The email was signed off by someone called, would you believe, Mr Smith from Foreign Section Alpha Beta Finance with a phone number in Europe. Needless to say I rang the number all in the name of this story and got no answer.
Now to date I had wasted about three hours following this through so my last communication to Mr Smith was to say, tongue in cheek, that I would take my winnings in one hundred pound notes please. Thinking I would never hear from them again, my second mistake the first being that I had contacted them at all, I get another email saying I need to arrange to pay the two thousand pounds for the transfer costs etc. Once again I stupidly went back to them and said take the fees out of my winnings. Hell, I say, take an extra hundred thousand pounds, gee I've won two million, I can afford a hundred thousand in fees. Guess what, they said sorry as the money is all in my name they cannot take any funds out until I have paid the transfer fees. At that stage I gave up.
I have since received nearly twenty emails a day from them as they think they have a real sucker on line and they are not going to let me go. I've written this article because on further investigation with the Department of Fair Trading in Australia I was told that approximately 300-400 Australians a year fall into these type of scams and there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.
I explored this story after I found out that the largest group of new users of the internet are our seniors citizens and unfortunately they are also the ones that are being targeted by these unscrupulous people. They send hundreds of thousands of these types of emails everyday around the world and unfortunately continue to catch many gullible people.
So emailers beware, nobody is going to give you thousands of pounds for nothing. Lady Luck simply isn't that obliging!