Beware of Scam Emails

“Scams” are increasing in number and types day by day. We must be careful in scams we come across. Basically there are two broad types of email scams: one is intimation of a huge Prize amount and another is appeal for financial help. Consequently,there are two reasons why and how people become victims of scam emails. One thing is desire for money, that too free-money; the second thing is kindness and helping tendency.

Many people become prey to the scams and lose money in-spite of being well educated and well informed. There are many true stories how many persons have lost their entire savings amount for getting the prize amounts intimated by the scam emails. In the anxiety to acquire the huge fortune they had been visualizing many people blindly believe scam emails and respond them and get into trouble and lose their money.

Fake Email from Banks:-
We will receive e-mails purported to have been sent by our Bankers asking us to visit the Bank’s website by the links provided in the mails, and asking us to confirm our internet banking- user id, password and other related details. We must not click the link given in such e-mail; and we must not reveal the details of our user id, password etc. We must contact our bankers over phone and report them about such e-mails and get clarifications.

We will get such emails from any bank/in the name of any bank, with which we may not have any connection at all. The following is an actural Spam email received:-

-Quote:
IMPORTANT UPDATE – Secure Your Online Account
From:
“Chase Bank”
To:
undisclosed-recipients
Dear Chase Online customer,
During our regualry scheduled accounts maintenance and verification procedures,
we have detected a slight error regarding your Chase Online Account.
This might be due to one of the following reasons:
1. A recent change in your personal information (i.e. address changing)
2. Submitting invalid information during the initial sign up process.
4. Multiple failed logins in your personal account.
3. An inabillity to accurately verify your selected option of payment due
to an internal error within our system.
Please update and verify your information by clicking the following link:
Continue To Chase Online Update Form
*If you account information is not updated within 48 hours then your ability to access your account will be restricted.
Thank you,
Chase Online , Billing Department.
E-mail Security Information
E-mail intended for your account.
If you are concerned about the authenticity of this message, please click here or call the phone number on the back of your credit card. If you would like to learn more about e-mail security or want to report a suspicious e-mail, click here
Note: If you are concerned about clicking links in this e-mail, the Chase Online services mentioned above can be accessed by typing www.chase.com/creditcards directly into your browser.
ABOUT THIS MESSAGE:
This service message was delivered to you as a Chase Credit Card customer to provide you with account updates and information about your card benefits.
If you want to contact Chase, please do not reply to this message, but instead go to www.chase.com/creditcards. For faster service, please enroll or log in to your account. Replies to this message will not be read or responded to.
Your personal information is protected by state-of-the-art technology. For more detailed security information, view our Online Privacy Policy. To request in writing: Chase Privacy Operations, 451 Florida Street, Fourth Floor, LA2-9376, Baton Rouge, LA 70801
-Unquote.

Lottery scams:-
We will receive e-mails intimating that we have become winners of lottery draws for which we would not have bought any lottery ticket and other draws in which we would not have participated and that we have won in “Lotto draws” in which we would not have contested
and the amount of prize will be in thousands of dollars and pound sterlings and in lakhs and even crores of Indian Rupees.

The e-mail will ask us to furnish our name, gender, age, address,
Phone numbers, mobile numbers etc. and will ask us to claim the prize won by us without our knowledge.

We must not reply such e-mails; we must delete such mails which will be addressed to “undisclosed recipients” even without opening the mails; and if such mails have been received in “Inbox” we must mark them as ”Spam” and delete them from “Spam” folder.

Sometimes the Prize intimation will be from very big banks and organizations such as “World Bank”, “Tata Motors” etc.

The following is an actual Scam email intimation of a Lottery prize winning:-

-Quote:
LOTTERY WINNER 2009
From:
“THE BRITISH LOTTERY ANNOUNCEMENT / 2009”
To:
undisclosed-recipients
We are pleased to inform you of the result of UK NATIONAL
LOTTERY 2009,
which was held on APRIL 15th, 2009. Your e-mail address
attached TICKET NUMBER: 74454774, SERIAL NUMBER: 144-
66584,with DRAW
LUCKY NUMBERS: 5-21-23-34-61-72 that drawn a prize of
516,778.00 GREAT BRITISH POUNDS
REQUIRED INFORMATION NEEDED
FULL NAME
ADDRESS
TEL
SEX
AGE
OCCUPATION
COUNTRY

CLAIMS AGENTS
Mr.Graig Darwing
Email: uknetupdatewinnings@googlemail.com
YOUR SECURITY FILE REFERENCE NUMBER IS UKL/K5998/U4. (keep
personal).
Remember, your winning must be claimed not later than (ONE
MONTH OF
NOTIFICATION).
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs.Lucy Baines
Public Relation Officer
-Unquote.

The following is another actual email intimating a winning of prize of money and a car from Toyota:

-Quote:
From:
“Toyota Company”
To:
undisclosed-recipients
The Lottery Department
Toyota Car Promotions
2 Lansdownerow,Berkeley
Square,London,W1J6H.
United Kingdom
CVR-NR.265457498

YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS HAS WON THE 2008 TOYOTA PRIZE AWARD
This is to inform you that have been selected for a cash prize of
£1000000.00 (One Million Great British Pounds)and a brand
new toyota car (Toyota camry) International programs held 2009 in the
London Uk as our new year car sales promotion.

The selection process was carried out through random selection in our
computerized email selection system from a database of over
250,000 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world.
This Toyota car Lottery is approved by the British Gaming Board and
also Licensed by the The International Association of Gaming
Regulators(IAGR).This promotional car lottery is the tenth of its kind
and we intend to sensitize the public.

To begin the processing of your prize you are to contact our accredited
Prize Transfer Agent as stated below:

Mr.Kelly Scott
Email:kellyscott73@aim.com

Tel :+447045704273
+447035982680

When contacting him, please provide him with your secret pin
codetyt4234bg and your reference number 6y2005udx.You are also advised
to provide him with the under listed information as soon as possible:

CLAIMS REQURIEMENTS:
1.Name in Full
2.Address
3.Age
4.Sex
5.Occupation

Accept my hearty congratulations once again!

Regards
Mr Evan C.Williams
Lottery Manager
-Unquote.

Property and/or unclaimed wealth bestowed on our name scams:-
Emails saying that we are the heirs of property of some huge amount by means of some will written by somebody in some part of the world and emails saying that unclaimed bank balance in some bank in some part of the world in some body’s name has been waiting for us to become the heir by some will or testament will be received. We should not become foolish to believe such messages and furnish the particulars asked by the emails and get into trouble.

Settlement of long pending bills payable to us in some business transaction or our claim from some finance organization scam:-
We will be receiving emails saying that some huge amount payable to us related to some business transaction or our long pending claim for some huge amount from some big organization is going to be settled and our personal particulars will be asked for. We must not respond to such idiotic e mails also.

The following is an actual email intimating some transfer of funds from Nigeria:-
-Quote:
From:
“MR.JOHN WILLIAMS”
To:undisclosed-recipients
NOTIFICATION OF PAYMENT VIA REGULAR MAIL SERVICE
Attention! Attention!! Attention!!!
Dear Sir/ Madam,
On behalf of the Minister of Finance and other private sectors here in Nigeria
brings out this Regular Mail Service to deliver the Unfinished Transfer of
Funds and Gratuity that is in the custody of different firms and companies to
the rightful owner in any countries. I am JOHN WILLIAMS in charge of this
operation.

The Minister of Finance has ordered the FedEx, Dhl, Ups, First Bank, Zenith
Bank and other firms to release the bank draft and Atm cards to the GPS
(Regular Mail Service), So that they can be mailed out to the rightful owners,
because there are too many complains coming to our desk from different
customers and the {FGN} Federal Government of Nigeria that people are not
getting their Instrument to cash their funds and gratuity, e.g people are not
getting their Bank Draft and Atm Cards due to the fact that people are not
meeting up with the required demands and amount imposed by some of this
delivery companies, firms and other sectors and constant require of fees that
are too much for people to handle.

We have series of Bank Drafts and Atm Cards here in our custody and they are
sealed and we dont know who and where they belong to we are getting in touch
with you to know if you have ever received an email regarding any Bank Draft
and Atm Cards please contact us back as we have sent it to the GPS (Regular
Mail Service) where it will be sent to you by REGULAR MAIL WITHOUT YOU PAYING ANY DELIVERY CHARGE OR INSURANCE FEE.ONLY $100 FOR ADMINISTRATIVE / ENDORSEMENT CHARGES ONLY AS JOINTLY APPROVED BY UNITED NATION AND WORLD BANK DELEGATES.
You are to contact the GPS (Regular Mail Service) for your funds immediately.
Here is their contact Number and email address:-
Full Names: -MR.BEN LANCELOT
Valid Contact: – ( mr_benlancelot@live.com )
Tel # +234-708-721-3321
Do send to them your following data so as to commence your delivery as soon as you get intouch with them.
1.FULL NAME:………
2.YOUR DELIVERY ADDRESS:……..
3.YOUR REACHABLE PHONE NUMBER:………

NOTE :DUE TO THE GREAT WORK THIS GOVERNMENT IS DOING TO HELP YOU GET YOUR FUNDS,IT IS MANDATORY THAT THE ONLY MONEY YOU WILL BE ASKED TO PAY WHEN YOU CONTACT THE G.P.S IS $100 FOR ADMINISTRATIVE / ENDORSEMENT CHARGES ONLY AS JOINTLY APPROVED BY UNITED NATION AND WORLD BANK DELEGATES BEFORE THIS REIMBURSEMENT.

You are to contact the GPS (Regular Mail Service) and ask them where you are to
send the $100 DMINISTRATIVE / ENDORSEMENT CHARGES which belongs to the Government
Do get intouch for your delivery at ones.
Regards
MR.JOHN WILLIAMS.
-Unquote.

We will receive many more such scam emails as explained above. The common motive of all the above types of scam emails are to get money from us. The message of lottery prize, property, claim amount and all such other huge amounts are baits for taking away as much money as possible from the people who believe such scams emails and in aspiration for huge amounts will be ready to send some small amount for the handling charges for our amount to reach them in the form of bank drafts sent by couriers for which the beneficiary of the huge fortune has to send the nominal cost of getting the proceeds of our treasure received by luck.

Also we will be receiving appeals for donations, funds assistance from individuals and charities. The horrible events and pathetic situations will be described and appeals will be for funds. We must remember real charities will never appeal for funds through emails. Even individuals will not send emails if they are in real problems.

Desire is the root cause of Misery as rightly preached by Lord Buddha. We must clearly understand that in the world nothing is really “FREE”.