Internet Lotto Rip-Off?
How many of you are getting bombarded with a slew of e-mails saying that you have won the lotto from (whatever country)?
You go through the process of filling out a confirmation form; then you have to fill out a shipping form.
Only to discover that the shipping company wants you to pay upfront X hundreds of dollars for shipping and insurance.
I wouldn't do it because I feel it's a scam. Yet they STILL keep sending the blinking things.
Update:Some of them even have website to appear legit. Hah! Not!
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Mark it as spam and PLEASE don't give out any personal information! You are correct it is a scam.
DO NOT send out your information, it is a scam. I supervised crime prevention for 6 years at the police department where I worked. ANY lottery that wants money to award a prize is a scam. We taught seminars on this and still people did it.
The Canadian organized crime in particular are very good about these schemes and have you wire the money where a person picks it up with fake IDs which they use only once so that the name on a watch list isn't recognized because it's already discarded.
We had one older gentleman who had sent a total of 18,000 dollars and he never thought he was being scammed, his kids alerted us.
Be careful.
A lot of us apparently. I've seen a lot of these questions in the past few weeks. The scams are so transparent that they must only be conning the most greedy and stupid. Maybe, that's a good enough percentile to make it a thriving business.
Also, I am going to star your question for two reasons:
a) Good question;
b) Answering this question got me a level 6;
Thank you.
It is a SCAM that has been going around for months.
why does everyone open this stupid thing? have we not learned anything about spam and that we should never open emails from people/organizations we don't know, or that just look suspicious.
come on, its the 21st century...wake up!!! You can't win something you never entered and you don't ever pay to get free money/prizes.
You should watch Dateline and the News. This scam has been going on for years.
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Listen, if you are ever concerned about an email you received, type in key words and then Snopes. Snopes is a valuable Internet resource that either proves or disproves an internet rumor or possible scam. Perhaps you remember this one about the missing child, Penny Brown:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/missing/penny.asp
All I did was type in Penny Brown Snopes and it was the first link.
When ever you get any lotto, petitions, missing children emails, or anything that could be an urban legend snopes can verify the validity of it for you.
Yes,It's a scam I get them almost every day and I delete them all.
Aint a clue
i do all the time, from Ireland. at first i was like "what! I've never been to Ireland." yeah, total crap.
I get tons of those emails for lottos and penis enhancements. :)
yes