14 DAY TRIAL // I've recently read a piece of news on Sydney Morning Herald website. It said that the Queensland police are warning web users about a new e-mail scam that promises lottery winnings.
I have no idea why they've dubbed this as "new" - this is the oldest trick in the book when it comes to spam-scam. I think I was in high-school when I got my first lottery-related spam-scam e-mail. It's a sad thing that the Police only decided to warn people now. But what's even worse is that this is only going on in Queensland - I can't remember ever being warned by a cop in my country about e-mail based scams. And I think that many people all around the world are not aware of these scams, because they've never been warned about them. And this is why they become victims of cyber-scam!
This scam is very simple - it does not require the crook to be too savvy. All he or she has to do is send out messages to gullible people telling them they've won millions and millions of dollars and that the winner has to contact him (the scammer) to get the money. Of course, the scammer will first ask the winner to deposit a fee in his account to get the whole sum. To be frank with you, I'd never give money to some person I don't know, hoping that I'll get a fortune soon. Not in real life, and certainly not over the web!
Not once have I gotten messages from the lottery saying that my IP won the big prize at some automatic draw and that I should collect it. How did they know what e-mail was related to my IP? That was the first thing that pointed out it was a scam. If you ever get an e-mail saying that you've won the lottery, just delete it. Not only you won't get any money, but you're bound to lose some if you do what the message tells you to do.