14 DAY TRIAL // MasterCard doesn’t run a lottery. Remember this in case you come across an email that appears to come from MasterCard, informing you that you’ve won $1 million (€750,000) in the company’s World E-Lottery.
Hoax Slayer has identified such emails. They’re entitled “Congratulations **Your Account Has Won $1,000,000.00” and they read something like this (all in uppercase letters):
“This is to notify you that your account has won MasterCard® World E-lottery 2013. Please kindly view the attached file for more details. Please note that only emails sent to this email account ([email protected]) will be attended to. Congratulations!!!”
It’s likely that the crooks inform recipients that only emails sent to this particular address will be taken into consideration because they don’t want potential victims to contact MasterCard on official channels and learn that the whole thing is a scam.
The document attached to the email reads something like this: “This email address has brought you an unexpected luck; we know this may be a surprise to you because you were not informed about this Promo. Please read through this message.
Your e-mail address was selected and confirmed by our co-sponsor Microsoft International MasterCard® Credit Card Jackpot 2013, through their latest internet software. You are therefore been approved by MasterCard® / Visa Card International to receive $1,000,000.00 in credit card to be delivered to you at your resident/house address.”
To make everything more legitimate-looking, a link to a website that contains a list of “past lucky winners” is provided. In addition, recipients of the emails are warned about scammers.
Users are instructed to send their details, including their MasterCard numbers, to the aforementioned email address. It’s likely that once they comply, the crooks will ask for more information and probably even some money that’s allegedly needed to cover certain fees.
If you come across such emails, simply ignore them.