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28 January 2008

Winner of Lottery Scam Mail

My primary email had been a tragic victim of spam mails ever since activation. Every year, the frequency of such spam mails keep increasing. Its so bad that I receive an average of 80 spam mails per day. I'm pretty sure its a huge number and I sure ain't gonna go through any of them.

Usually these spam mails are automatically sent to my spam mailbox. However some of the infamous lottery scams managed to land on my main mailbox.
One example of such mail:
LG WINNING NOTIFICATION
Muara Baru Ujung
Block D1-2. City,
Indonesia.

Ref: MF/3838X4/0
Batch: 038/08/KF444

We happily announce to you the draw (#1004) of the LG Group Lottery Online Sweepstakes International program held on the 11th of January 2008,of which you emerged a winner. Your e-mail address attached to ticket number:188 with Serial number: 5748/04 drew the lucky numbers which subsequently won you the lottery in the 1st category.You have therefore been approved to claim a total sum of $1,000,000.00 (One Million US Dollars)in cash credited to fileKTL/9123418308/03 All participants for the online version were selected randomly from World WideWeb sites through computer draw system and extracted from over100,000 unions and corporate bodies listed online.This promotion takes place annually for security reasons you are advised to keep your winning information confidential till your claims is processed and your money remitted to you in whatever manner you deem fit to claim your prize. This is part of our precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of this program by some unscrupulous elements.Please be warned.

To file your claims, please contact our agent:
Mr Terry Wrist
LG Group Lottery
Email:lglotterypromo111@yahoo.com.sg
Tel:+628170055356

Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program.

Note: Anybody under the age of 18 is automatically disqualified.

Ms. Il Steel,
Online coordinator.
I knew instantly that it is a scam, but there is always this thought of "What if it isn't?". I wasn't just gonna let this opportunity pass away, should I? It was pretty tempting to want to claim my winning. I love money, especially those with lots of zeros at the end.

*Dude, Snap out of it*. Its clearly a lottery scam. The following reasons are the ones I used to convince myself that its a scam:
1) I don't remember joining any lottery program
2) If I were to win one-million dollars, shouldn't they at least give me the respect I deserve by addressing me with my REAL name? [eg: dear mr.Leng Chai,]
3) The email address that they used [lglotterypromo111@yahoo.com.sg] is a free mail service. Kinda weird if you ask me since the seemingly big LG group doesn't have their own domain mail.

Suspicion will always be a suspicion, just a hunch. I had to confirm it. So I simply Google the 2 names included in the mail. Surely enough, there were search results confirming that its a scam.

Oh, I read the lottery scam mail again and it says that I'm suppose to keep my winning information confidential. So, lets keep this information between you and me. Don't go around leaking info about my winning ya!

[From microsoft.com] Spotting a fraud: 7 signs of a scam:
1. You don't know the person who has sent you the message.
2. You are promised untold sums of money for little or no effort on your part.
3. You are asked to provide money up front for questionable activities, a processing fee, or to pay the cost of expediting the process.
4. You are asked to provide your bank account number or other personal financial information, even if the sender offers to deposit money into it.
5. The request contains a sense of urgency.
6. The sender repeatedly requests confidentiality.
7. The sender offers to send you photocopies of government certificates, banking information, or other "evidence" that their activity is legitimate (these are fake).

16 comments:

David Cheong said...

LOL, if not u could have won and belanja me ady haha

Michelle Chin said...

Have you receive the ones saying that some family of yours in Africa died and has decided to give away 10 acres of cocoa plantation to you?

I did and it was totally freaky.

LeNgLuiLiNg said...

haha....dear mr leng chai.... if so easy to win the lottery.. you must be the LUCKY wan...haha

Katherine said...

Never expose your e-mail address online. That attracts spam. >_<

Anonymous said...

Actually i din read those spam email.. I just delete all..

3POINT8 said...

[david cheong]
yaya..I can belanja a lot more people some more if I win!

[michelle chin]
Got got, I received those african mail too.

[lengluiling]
I consider myself lucky to ignore those mail. Don't want to lose a few thousand dollars to them, would I?

[宝茹]
now that you mention about it, I better wipe off my email add from social network site.

[keeyit]
I do delete them too. But sometimes the title is so subtle that I thought its some important notice from some agency.

Anonymous said...

You're so lucky them..
haha.
I wonder why they keep sending those useless mail.

Calv said...

hmmm i get these mails all the time...about their father died and they're in captive, they need me to help them to withdraw money and so on =.= really bodoh lar

Samuel Goh Kim Eng said...

Please refer to my motivational poem entitled "NO NEED FOR GREED" in my blog http://MotivationInMotion.blogspot.com
for my comment on this subject.

Samuel Goh Kim Eng - 290108
http://msi.Rocky101.com
Tue. 29th Jan. 2008.

xniquet said...

it is always worth a try :P

maybe it is for real one leh :P


wukakakakkakakaka

anyway, i never believe in gambling with money but others things okie la :P

Chee Ching said...

I kena also. Recently. XD
Actually read the whole thing. XD

buta chan said...

hehe hi Kif!!

how have u been n are ya still in Malaysia?

yeah my e-mail gets alot of this kinda spam especially yahoo mail. hmm...

3POINT8 said...

[johnnykiu.com]
I heard they send those mails by millions everyday. Let's just say 5% reply them, they get to scam 5,000 of them. And if they could get a $1000 from the 5% who replied, they could fish at least $50k per day!
Thats how they scam people.

[calv]
They can't fool a techie like you. But they could fool my grandma!

[samuel goh]
OO...nice poem!

[x]
Does that mean that you do not gamble? Wow...you are probably the 2nd person i've heard saying that.

[chingy]
Ahaha....you actually read the whole thing! Does it mean that don't receive that many mails from friends? =P

[buta chan]
Yup yup...i'm still in aus. I'll be leaving for aus at around mid-feb. I'll probably see you there. =D

Nux V said...

i never read those spam mail..just a glance thru before i hit "Delete" button...sometimes i ter-delete those real mails from frens...

Huei said...

i got SOOO many of these!

microsoft la..duno wut big big co la..so annoying.

and what's most annoying is..the from address is a microsoft address, but the reply to will be a .yahoo.hk address! haha

3POINT8 said...

[Huei]
Yalor yalor, most of them have .yahoo or .hotmail address. Annonying~~~