Here is an example of the "your e-mail has won..." classic nigerian scam.
If you get an e-mail that resembles the actual e-mail below in your e-mail box, PLEASE BE ADVISED IT IS A FAKE, A SCAM, AN ATTEMPT TO GET YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR IDENTITY THEFT PURPOSES.
Since i do not live where british pounds sterling are the basic unit of monetary exchange, it is a rather good clue that this is a rip-off from a foreign country, possibly nigeria since a lot of their e-mail scams feature british spelling, locations in the uk and promises of fake awards in british pound sterling — the uk monetary exchange unit. (also note, the money that this scam e-mail claims that you have won has been expressed to me in past scam e-mails as american dollars, euros. Dinars, israeli sheckles, russian rubles and so on...
People who so desperately need the money want to believe that this is true and greed and need override logic and reality but think about it — why would anyone pay you a million units of any currency just for an e-mail at random and when is the last time you actually heard of anyone winning this?
Also, there is no "mrs. Rose wood." this is a scam name.
A lot of nigerians scams pretend to be e-mails from women. I don't know why.
Also note, no alternative contact form besides the disposable e-mail address.
When we look at the return address where you are supposed to send you identity information, we see that it appears to be a yahoo.com e-mail account in singapore. Why singapore? Who knows, possibly to throw off the fact that this scam originates in nigeria.
And as anyone who has ever set up a "disposable" e-mail account knows, you can have e-mails sent from any address...
For instance, why not respond to the address the e-mail claims to be from?
Correct answer: do not respond to this e-mail at all because you will get ripped off in an identity theft scam. It is primitive and obviously a fake but it works...
Unless you read about this in the rip off report!
This is not real. You haven't won anything at all! And neither has any of your e-mail.
Get real. Why would it win anything?
Here is what the scam "your e-mail has won" e-mail looks like:
From:
"Mrs Rose Wood"
To:
undisclosed-recipients
The Sum Of 1,000, 000.00 Pounds has been won by your EMAIL
Address in our 2009 New Year sweepstakes program. Do get
back to this office with your claims requirement such as
1. Name in full
2. Address
3. Nationality
4. Age
5. Sex
6. Occupation
7. Phone/Fax
8. Present Country
Reply to this confidential Email Address:
[email protected]. Sg
Best Regards
Mrs Rose Wood.
Just for fun, i did find a web address that contained: and found something written in russian cyrillic alphabet andifound another site with something else which appeared to be a free download of open office software written with hebrew letters.
Am i going to download any of it?
Not a chance!
Fake! Fake! Scam! Scam! Scam! Fake! Fake! Fake! Fake! Scam! Scam! Scam! Fake!
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