14 DAY TRIAL // A new online lottery scam has been spotted on the web but, this time, the one affected is not Google or Yahoo, as in the previous cases, but Kia, the famous car producer. According to MotorTrader, an email message claiming to be sent by Kia informs readers that they have won a Kia and a 750,000 pounds money prize at a lottery set up by the automobile manufacturer. Most people should understand that this message simply sounds too good to be true and should stop here without reading the rest of the message. However, the naive ones are asked to provide some private details about them, including bank related.
This is quite a classic lottery scam and we've seen similar ones in the past even if the attackers struggled to include all sorts of details that could be able to trick the readers: the Kia Motors UK official emails and telephone numbers.
"We have never run an e-mail lottery. This is a despicable scam being carried out on unwitting members of the public by thieves," a Kia Motors UK representative told MotorTrader.
As mentioned, there were similar cases in the past when large companies such as Google and Yahoo were involved into fake online lotteries. The scams were pretty much the same as the victims were informed that they had won the grand prize and they were asked to send private details to a provided email address. However, both Google and Yahoo denied the rumors, saying that they will never set up such a lottery so users receiving such emails must ignore them immediately.
"Google doesn't send unsolicited email, and we don't permit others to send unsolicited email through our mail servers. A number of unscrupulous businesses have sent out mass mailings that appear to be related to Google. We're actively pursuing all available legal means to stop these miscreants from abusing our name and your inbox," Google wrote in a statement rolled out at that time.