LOTTERY SCAMS PROLIFERATE AND HIT HOME

The famed and highly successful Canadian Lottery Scam has begun to spin off new variants and twists. This week we talked with yet another victim of this scam who lost well over $100,000.

We have modified some of the elements of this story, but not the basic facts, in order to protect current and potential victims.

The victim was notified by email of his extraordinary winnings in a Netherlands lottery by a large and ethical lottery company in Europe. However the email was from criminals not from the lottery company. He was directed to a legitimate looking website and given his client access information. And amazingly there was a web page indicating a balance in the lottery bank of millions of euros. All they had to do was provide personal information and pay fees and taxes and the money would be released to him. These criminals are after both money and key identity information to be used in later crimes.

Once again the tragedy of “too good to be true” strikes home.

Here is a copy of the criminal email.

From: "Tracy Moore" <xxxxx@hotmail.com> (NOTE; THIS IS FROM A FREE EMAIL HOSTING COMPANY NOT THE NETHERLANDS LOTTERY FIRM)
Date: February 2, 2007 8:56:51 AM PST
Subject: ANNUAL WINNING NOTIFICATION !!! CONGRATULATIONS !!!
Reply-To: xxxxx@aim.com (NOTE; THE REPLY IS TO A WIDELY DISTRIBUTED SPAM GENERATOR PROGRAM)

ANNUAL WINNING NOTIFICATION !!! CONGRATULATIONS !!!
Computer Ballot Jackpot 'A' Draw Result.
FROM: De LOTTO.NL
PRIZE AWARD DEPT.

REF No: QNL/4A51/8C60/06
BATCH No: XA3/312-59
TICKET No: 334/ 660078
SERIAL No: 05908
LUCKY No: 9-43-97

WINNING EMAIL NOTIFICATION [FOR CATEGORY "A" WINNER ONLY].

Dear Lucky Winner,

Congratulations to you as we bring to your notice, the results of the Free Email Computer Ballot Jackpot 'A' draw 1st Category of LOTTO.NL.

We are pleased to inform you of the result of the Lottery Winners International programs drawn today, 29/01/2007. Your E-mail address attached to Ticket number 334/ 660078 with Serial number 05908 drew the lucky numbers 9-43-97, which consequently won in the 1st category; you have therefore been approved for a lump sum payout of EUR2, 500, 000. 00 Euros. (TWO MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND EUROS). CONGRATULATIONS!!!

This lottery is a promotional program by LOTTO.NL (Biggest lottery Organization in the Netherlands) to advertise to the world its existence. All participants were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from over 50,000 companies and 2,000,000 individual email addresses from all over the world, as part of our international promotions program, which we intend to conduct several times a year.

To file for your claim, please contact our /your processing agent

CONTACT:
**********************************************
Mr. Andrew Thompson
Email: nlsoftwarepros@aim.com
Tel. No: +31-61-047-4520
Fax. No: +31-84-722-2680

**********************************************
You are advice to provide him with the following information:
Names:
Telephone/Fax number:
Nationality:
Age:
Company (if any):
Winning reference and Batch numbers:

NOTE: All winnings must be claimed not later than 14 days, thereafter unclaimed funds would be included in the next stake. Remember to quote your reference information in all correspondence. Members of the affiliate agencies are automatically not allowed to participate in this program.

Furthermore, we call on you to make sure that you save a copy of this mail and note every letter clearly as stated for we will not be held responsible should there be any complications in this transaction due to laxity on your part. Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Should there be any change of address do inform our agent as soon as possible.
Congratulations once more from our members of staff and thank you for being part of our promotional program. Pls Do not reply to the email address from where you received the information, thank you.

Yours truly,

MS Caroline Van Bosch
Promotion Manager.
THANK YOU AND CONGRATULATIONS!!!

************THIS IS NOT SPAM***********

_________________________________________________________________



From the official website of the Netherlands Lottery company:

De Lotto warns against a large Lottery scam. In an e-mail (or letter), which is written in bad English, the addressee is told that he/she has won a large amount of money in a lottery. When the ‘lottery’ is contacted, it turns out that the prize can only be collected if a payment is made of thousands of dollars/euros for ‘handling fees’. Obviously the prize is never paid out. The organization behind the fraud operates under different names, often derived from well known lotteries. For example: Lucky Day Lottery, De Lotto Netherlands, Interlotto, Oy Keikkaus Switzerland, El Gordo de la Primitiva and Global Trust Lottery. The police and the Ministry of Justice have been informed about the fraud. Nevertheless, it is hard to stop the malpractices. The criminals give false addresses, and cannot be traced via the stated telephone numbers, e-mail addresses and P.O. Boxes. Neither do they have permanent addresses and moreover, they change their identity regularly.

If you should receive such an e-mail, do not respond in any way, don not provide these people with any personal identity information and do not pay any money!