A kind (but confused) reader sent us this email, asking if it was legitimate. Normally, we don’t provide case-by-case support but this seemed like a good opportunity to show how identity thieves and online criminals persuade people to give away personal information. [We've edited out the name, address, email and phone number for obvious reasons. The rest is reprinted here verbatim.] So, first here’s the email:
Microsoft Award Team
[Address edited out]
[Address edited out]
United KingdomRef: BTD/969/07
Batch: 59978EDDear Winner,
WINNING NOTIFICATION
The prestigious Micrsoft and aol has set out and sucessfully organised a Sweepstakes marking the new year 2007 anniversary we rolled out over ?£10,000.000.00 (Ten million Great Britain Pounds) for our end of year Anniversary Draws. Participants for the draws were randomly selected and drawn from a wide range of web hosts which we enjoy their patronage.
Your email address as indicated was drawn and attached to ticket number 0087955827499 with serial numbers BTD/0080648302/07 and drew the lucky numbers 14-21-30-39-40-47(31) which subsequently won you £1,000,000.00 (One Million Great Britain Pounds) as one of the 10 jackpot winners in this draw.
To file for your claim Please Contact your fiduciary agent
Mr [name edited out]
Microsoft Promotion Award Team
Email: [impossibly long email address - edited out] @yahoo.co.uk
Phone:+44-[phone number edited out]
Fax: +44-[phone number edited out]You are advised to contact your fiduciary agent with the following details to avoid unnecessary delays and complications:
Your Full Names
Country
Occupation
Age
Ticket Numbers
Batch Numberas indicated in this winning Notification and Phone numbers.
Congratulations from the Staffs & Members of the interative Lotteries Board Commission ;
Sincerely,
Dr. [name edited out]
Microsoft Promotion Team
So how can you tell this is a fake email?
- It’s full of spelling mistakes. For example, they’ve misspelled Microsoft and put AOL in lowercase (it’s always upper case on their website). In fact, the first sentence of the email contains four typos. Be wary of emails that contain typos.
- Despite claiming to come from Microsoft and AOL, the reply email address is on yahoo.co.uk. Be wary of emails that don’t match the organisation that claims to send the email, especially long or obscure addresses or addresses from free email providers.
- The addresses don’t match the companies behind this alleged lottery. You’ll have to take my word for this since I edited them out but a quick check on BT.com’s online phone book can confirm a company’s real address. If someone makes big claims, they need big proof – check what they say.
- It creates an artificial sense of urgency – to “avoid unnecessary delays and complications.” Don’t think! Give us your information! Now! If someone asks you to act urgently, ask yourself if they are trying to stop you thinking too much.
- It asks you to give them personal information. Initially, it’s pretty harmless- name, country and occupation; but once they’ve got you on the hook they’ll start asking for things like birthdays, bank account details, mother’s maiden name etc. All under the pretence of ‘verifying your identity’ but in fact for the purpose of emptying your bank account. Be extremely wary of giving away personal information.
- Surreal punctuation and capitalisation. The final sentence ends in a semi-colon and half the words are capitalised but in an inconsistent way. If they have £10m to give away, they can hire someone who knows how to write properly.
- Grandiose language and officialese. They want you to think this is important and official so they use inflated language, such as fiduciary agent and lengthy ticket numbers, reference numbers and batch numbers to give it a sense of importance. Be wary of emails that try to baffle brains with bullshit.
- There’s no evidence that Microsoft or AOL are running a lottery which involves giving away money to people at random. You can check this yourself by going to Microsoft’s home page or AOL’s. If companies run prize competitions they want a lot of publicity (otherwise, why give away millions of pounds?). Check that the lottery really exists.
- There’s no good reason for the prize to exist. The email says “Sweepstakes marking the new year 2007 anniversary.” Does that sound like any kind of lottery or competition or prize that you’ve seen before? Use your common sense.
- You didn’t buy a ticket or enter a competition. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,
Got such an Email just today from “micro.soft.costumercare@hotmail.com”
I had better studied your website first or rather studied it instead of answering the “MS Award team”. Now I have to be prepared for the swindlers’ telephone calls. – So thanks a lot for your advice.
By the way they have stated a UK-telephone number: 0044 7031972833
Regards
W.M. (Austria)
Thank you so much for this advice! I have received an email advising me of a 1m Euro lottery win (oh wouldn’t that be nice!!) from Netherlands Government Lottery and BMW. They wanted all sorts of personal info. Its almost identical to the Microsoft email you’ve shown above. Thank goodness I checked first and got to your link.
I have received an e-mail saying that I have won 10,000. GBP from the following address:
Anthony Craig, Operation Manager Officer, Payment and Release Order Dept. 3b Olympic Way, Sefton Business Park, Aintree, Liverpool, L30 1RD. At first notice, I gave him the basic information requested but now I have become very skeptical about this and after reading your website I am almost convinced that this is a scam. Is there anyway that you can confirm this for me. I am definitely not submitting anymore info to anyone but I sure would like to know more about this, Is like you say it sounds to good to be true. Thanks a lot for any help you can provide.
you saved me,i have been sharing my name,address ,tel no,e-mail,with such fraud lotteries,i stopped there only after visiting your information,do that shared information is harmful to me in future.please guide me on my e-mail address given above.
I also get one mail as below;
Claims Agent wrote:
Dear Winner,
I am reaching from our office,The Camelot Group,Operators of The National Lottery.The Camelot Group, operators of the United Kingdom National Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and also Licensed by the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR).
Your selected randomly from World Wide Web through computer balloting system drawn from over 100,000 names database, union associations and corporate bodies that are listed online. This promotion is this year’s United Kingdom National
Lottery MONTH OF JULY BONANZA.Results not are publish in our site as winners did not pay to play but rather drawn from 100,000 names database, union associations and corporate bodies that are listed online.
Our line is intact as I have just finished receiving a call.
If you doubt your winning,you are advice to come over to our office with a valid ID.
Hence, carefully fill in the appropriate information in the space provided below for record purposes to facilitate our immediate commencement of your claims process. The completed form should be sent to your claims agent for immediate commencement of prize remittance.
*Name of Beneficiary:
*Address:
*City/State:
*Nationality:
*Sex:
*Email Address:
*Tel:
*Occupation:
*Next of Kin:
*Age:
*AMOUNT WON:
*In Figures:
*In Words:
*Lucky Nos:
*Ticket No:
OFFICE USE ONLY
Verified by:……………………………….
Confirmed by:……………………………
CLAIMS AGENT’S SIGNATURE:……………………….
Sincerely,
Fred Martin.
Tel: +44-702-403-2076
Well done for spelling this out in detail. I have received the same email plus 11 similar emails in the last 3 weeks. If I believed them I would be richer by $US 79 million and £15 million.
Mine came from Microsoft Canada with UK Microsoft as their partner. Aside from the notifications they also sent me a form for openiing a non-residential account where they will transfer your winnings.The
minimum deposit is 1200 Euro-Sterling pounds but Credit Suisse Bank requires a minimum of 1Million pounds.Beware! It seems like they are improving their modus operandi everyday. By the way, I spoke to my fiduciary agent Mr. Adams and he’s got a strong Chinese accent instead of a deep English accent. My certificate of winnings of 500,000 Euro-pounds does have the necessary info only it doesn’t have the printed names of the people who signed the document.
My ride with them went as far as sending me a certificate of winning in the amount of 500,000 Euro-sterling pounds. I spoke with my fiduciary agent Mr. Adams and the bank correspondent of UK Microsoft and both have strong Chinese accent instead of deep English accent.Don’t you think so? They asked me to open a non-residential account with a minimun deposit of 1200 pounds compared to 1Million pounds required by Credit Suisse Bank of UK. Beware! They have improved their modus operandi looking for a weaker prey in this computer era. The notification I got came from one of our local microsoft offices here in Western Canada with UK Microsoft as their International partner.
I have gotten dozens of these types of email and more from scam artists. Some emails come as Lottery Winnings,People on their death bed trying to help the poor or orphans, Bank officials trying to get closed account money by making me the next of Kin, Soldiers in Iraq stealing money from war criminals, Work from home make 10% by just handling transfers between clients me and business, and even casino scams. BEWARE DO NOT LET TEMPTATION LET YOU FALL INTO THEIR TRAPS OF SCAMMING YOU! I have never responded to the dozen of these types of emails I recieve a DAY, simply because as one man put it on your site I would be millions of dollars richer in just days! If its to good to be true-sad to say but then it is! I am glad I found this site because I plan on forwarding all these emails from now on so that they may be tracked and investigated, so that others may not suffer.
Hi thanks for the confirmation of what i already knew. I like to lead them on a bit to see how far they go. There now asking for my passport and driving licence details for proof before they give me £1.750mill. PLUS they want £1750to insure the money before they hand it over Iv had two others regarding a house rental and they payed with a forged certified cheque. I printed it all off and gave it to my banks security dept who passed it on to the FBI. I hope this is of some use to others
This email is, of course, bogus, but I am willing to bet that the primary purpose is NOT identity theft; rather it is the very common “advance fee fraud”. Once the victim has been drawn in, they are told that they need to pay an “administration fee” or somesuch to collect their winnings.
Looking at the full headers of this email would probably reveal its point of origin and so make it easier to judge whether identity theft was the name of the game. In other words somebody on a different continent isn’t going to find it so easy to apply for a credit card in your name as someone in the same country (which is far far more likely than “emptying your bank account”).
Thanks a lot! You really helped me not to be got on the hook.
Splendid email address reported by Wolfgang Müller above:
micro.soft.costumercare@hotmail.com
Costumer care = dry cleaners?
On a more serious note, bad English, erratic capitals, typos etc are all a dead giveaway of a scam. The danger is that criminals will get more sophicticated and make sure their text is immaculate. That’s already begun to happen in phishing, though not yet (thankfully) in those interminable emails from African bank officials.
hi. If i had answered all those fake Emails i received in a year, AND if they were truth and genuine, i would be now multi billionaire! EVERYDAY nearly i receive those kinds of Emails. Most of them come from South Africa or Nigeria. Some of them sounds like a particular individual who is looking for a partner to transfer a HUGE amount of money, mostly several millions dollars or to share a will or something. The first time i believed it, but i did some research, and i never gave my bank account details. In my country, Ireland, a poor priest had fallen into this kind of trap and got his bank account emptied! Anyway, no risk for me, as my bank account is always -!
yep
definitely a scam!
http://www.scamemail.co.uk
I disagree with the author of this topic and I think the process of discouraging people to give away their personal details is irresponsible. Clearly the authors of these emails are intelligent individuals, as is evident in their grasp of the written word, and as such, have used their ingenuity to amass great wealth.
Stereotypically, extremely wealthy people, are excited by the prospect of giving away inordinate sums of money, for seemingly no apparent reason, and do so wherever the opportunity may arise. Bill gates is a prime example. All you have to do it forward one of his emails and he gives you $100. Easy money I say!
I for one cannot hand over my details quickly enough and usually forego the mundane backward and forwarding of emails by simply providing my bank and credit card details in the first email to try to speed things along.
Unfortunatley, I’ve found few opportunities to partake in such activities recently as my internet access keeps getting cut off due to insufficient funds in my bank account for direct debits. Ironically enough, money seems to be mysteriously disappearing from my account rather than accumulating! I suspect that there is someone at the bank who’s up to no good!
This is of little concern to me, however, as I’m expecting a cool $70 Million to hit my account any day now from a dead aunt whom I never met, who lived in South Africa. Who’d have thought she choose me!? Luck certainly seems to be going my way as not a week beforehand, I was fortunate enough to be given my $23 Million share of an $800 Million left by some French diamond miner, simply for sounding like I’m a good bloke!? Nuts! These people are crazy! CRAZY!
Anyway, I must be going as I’ve just started a business buying cartons of a dozen eggs for $5 and selling each egg for 20c each. Business is booming, I can barely keep up!
Ta ta.
OH YEAH! I just wanted to say that Cyril(#16) that I really liked his humor, but I had to read it more than once to see for sure that he wasn’t serious!
Ch
Im nineteen and got sent this email, it asked for my name and address and stuff, i thought hey it looks ok but i have never been one to give my bank account details away to anyone, i was a weak target because im so young and yea a bit nieve maybe but if it had have asked for my bank account i would have guessed straight away anyways so i replied and got another email back about how it was being processed and paperwork would be sent out to me i was not going to reply to this one and refuse to , i sent them email back saying that i dont want anything they send me and hopefully they will get the picture
thankyou for the advice next time i will know
I am sick of recieving emails from nigeria saying God bless you but i am dying of cancer and have $500,000.00 which i would like you to have please sent me your details so i can sent the money to someone who will make good use of it. Isnt there anyway these people can be stopped.