R News: Online Lottery Scam

Online Lottery Scam

by Casey J. Bortnick

photo by Kurt MuellerPublished Jan 01, 2006

[Online Lottery Scam] Along with the New Year comes a new batch of internet scams designed to fool people into thinking they’ve won an online lottery sweepstakes. “We are very vulnerable because we grew up in an age where we trusted everybody,” said Lucille Cooke of Greece.

Cooke is not a suspicious person. That’s why she did not dismiss an e-mail she received on Saturday. “It said something about a prize,” said Cooke. So I opened it up and wow! My eyes bugged out because it said congratulations you have just won 200 thousand dollars in the lottery,” she added.

The e-mail was from an organization calling itself the Western African Lottery out of Sydney Australia. To claim her prize Cooke was asked to send in her name and address, but not to share the information until her claim was processed. “So I thought gee, maybe there’s a possibility. But that was the fantasy. We all want to get rich quick,” said Cooke.

After a quick online search, R-News discovered a duplicate letter on fraudaid.com. This website is designed to protect against lottery scams. Because Cooke often plays the lottery and checks the results online, her e-mail address was added to a phony lottery drawing.

Lottery scam artists send out thousands of online letters each day. They’re after two things, your money and more importantly your identity. All it takes is your driver’s license and even your credit card number to fall victim. “That’s what I was concerned about, because the fact they had my e-mail address. It wouldn’t have cost me anything, but it could have cost me my identity,” said Cooke.

Legitimate lotteries never ask for money. Winnings are never shipped in cash or by courier. Lottery money is only sent by check, by Fed Ex or UPS. The check will have the name of the lottery company on the check. It’s also a good idea to run your anti-virus programs on your computer every day. And if sounds to good to be true it probably is. “If my server tells me that it’s SPAM, I’m going to delete it so fast my poor machine will probably burn up,” said Cooke.

http://www.rnews.com/Story_2004.cfm?ID=33397&rnews_story_type=18