by Ralph
Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:27 am
2 things stand out immediately to me, that is besides winning a lottery you haven't entered and being contacted by email in regards to your "winning".
The email address you are to reply to is from a free email domain, real lotteries would have their own domain, ([email protected]) for example, not that you would be contacted by email anyway, lottery agencies do not ask your email address when you buy a ticket.
The other big red flag is the phone number you are being asked to ring 4470 numbers are a redirect service provided free of charge and can be set up by anybody in the world, calls to these numbers will initially go to the UK then redirect to the owner of that phone number regardless of where they are in the world. 4470 numbers are used extensively by scammers as it appears to be a UK number.
In most cases with these lottery scam email a search on the ticket numbers used will reveal other scams using the same ticket number
The email address you are to reply to is from a free email domain, real lotteries would have their own domain, ([email protected]) for example, not that you would be contacted by email anyway, lottery agencies do not ask your email address when you buy a ticket.
The other big red flag is the phone number you are being asked to ring 4470 numbers are a redirect service provided free of charge and can be set up by anybody in the world, calls to these numbers will initially go to the UK then redirect to the owner of that phone number regardless of where they are in the world. 4470 numbers are used extensively by scammers as it appears to be a UK number.
In most cases with these lottery scam email a search on the ticket numbers used will reveal other scams using the same ticket number
From: Removed name of real person@nyu.edu (Spoofed email address to appear more legitimate, notice you are meant to reply to a different email address, the scammer does not control the email address that this email appears to have come from)
Subject: Ticket Number: 5647600545188
Ticket Number: 5647600545188
Attention: Lucky Winner,
We are happy to announce that you are one of our Lucky Four(4)
Star Prize Winner in this months edition of the UK National Lottery
held 1st.December 2009 in England.
This makes you a proud Winner of 750,000 Great British Pounds.
To claim your prize Contact the claim office with the underlisted
informations as soon as possible:
Name,Address,Country,Age,Gender,Occupation,Phone number/Fax
Best Regards,
Richard Dawson
Email:[email protected]
Tel+447031952957
