I received this letter in the mail yesterday from a company informing me of my supposedly winning the 3rd category prize of the El Gordo Sweepstakes Lottery. Yeah right. The thing was obviously a scam - check out the indicators below:
Clue #1: Envelope with no return address...
Clue #2: The award is for a lottery that is held in a country I have not visisted in 10 years, and for which I never bought a ticket (humm... Gee, wonder how I won a foreign lottery I never entered...)
Clue #3: They ask for my bank information... (Sure guys, I'll send that right over to ya, despite the aforementioned doubts in #2!)
Clue #4: Lots of typos, and what is evidently a mass produced, photocopied letter instead of an original printed out on letterhead paper. (Because, of course! This is necessary in order to send out notices to all the other million people that also won the amazing 3rd prize!)
Clue #5: Suspicious wording such as: "But a little payment of tax clearance fee is required from every beneficiary who is not an EUROPEAN citizen for release of the payment order from the ministry of economy." (Oh really? Just a "little payment" huh? Well, sure, go right ahead!)
Clue #6: More suspicious wording: "Due to mix up of some numbers and names, we ask that you keep this award from public notice until your cliam has been processed and your money remitted to your account..." (Sure, no problem - the cops won't hear of this until AFTER you scam me of my money!)
Nice try, guys, but no cigar! (Oh, and I'll bet it cost you a pretty penny to send out all those international letters, too!)
More relavant information:
1) Reference Number: EG/2551256003/01
2) Batch Number: 000750013
3) Lottery Ticket NUmber: 025-11-464-992-750
4) Lottery Ticket Serial Number: 2113-05
5) Lottery Lucky Numbers: 13-15-16-21-34-36
6) Lump Sum Payment of USD 615,810.00
7) Total Cash Prize of USD 10,468, 770 (How this is different from the Lump Sum Payment in 6, I don't know... Note that they didn't add the ". 00" for cents here, but they did for the Lum Sum Payment amount quoted only a sentence apart in the letter.)
8) Claims agent: Louis Pablo
9) All prize money must be claimed no later than 9th of August.
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