This 419 scam has been around for a while, but it managed to bypass Gmail’s spam filter today for me.
From: canada Lottery Board <wwwcanadalotto1 @gmail.com>
Date:Oct 11, 2007 1:10 PM
Subject: CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU (FROM Ms.Patricia Atkins)Ms.Patricia Atkins
Canada Lottery-Soccer World Cup 2010 Promotional Draw
1550 Princess Street
Kingston, ON, Canada, K7M 9E3
canadian_lotteryoffice@yahoo.ca ,
Congratulations, you have won Canada Lottery!
Attention: Customer AFRSA680
Ref: EAAL/851OYHI/05
Batch No. Lotto 6/49WINNING NOTIFICATION
Dear Winner,
We bring to you a notice that your email address have won you the Lottery,Find the attached notification below and contact Mr.Maxwell Christopher for your claim. telephone +2773 7100 755Congratulation Once Again,
Yours Sincerely,
Ms.Patricia Atkins
Until spammers learn how to localize email body text, they’ll provide us with a decent chuckle 🙂
For those that don’t see the scam in this, or any similar emails that you may receive:
- Since when have soccer tickets become Lotto 6/49 prizes? Hint: they haven’t – it’s always money.
- A Lottery Office would likely have its own domain (Ex: the Ontario Lotto and Gaming Corporation owns OLG.ca) and not a free email address like one from Yahoo! or Gmail.
- The telephone number that I’m supposed to call is clearly not North American. Why would the “Canada Lottery Board” (which doesn’t exist) have me call somebody on another continent to claim my prize?
- English sentence structure and grammar is brutal.
Scams like this must fool somebody or else they wouldn’t continue to float around from mail server to mail server. Exercise good judgement and don’t let it happen to you.
