I received a message from Mr. James Walker informing I won £950.000 Is this a serious lottery? Can it be true?

Question

Date: Tue, 4 Mar 2008 01:38:42

Subject: YAHOO MAIL CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON £950.000

From: "YAHOO INTERNET LOTTERY" <[e-mail]>

YAHOO INTERNET LOTTERY

CONGRATULATIONS! YOU WON £950.000!..

Yahoo! Mail gives members random cash prizes. Today, your account is randomly selected as the one of 5 top winners accounts who will get cash prizes from us.We are happy to inform you that you have won a prize money of £950,000.00 .

Walker<[e-mail]>

YAHOO, collects all the mail ID of the people that are online on yahoo messenger, among the millions that subscribe to yahoo messenger we only select five people every month as our winners through electronic balloting System without the winner applying,we are congratulating you for been

one of the people selected...

Mr. James Walker, LOTTO CO-COORDINATO

Please let me know if Mr James Walker is a Yahoo staff. Is this a fraudulent act? Because they use the name of Yahoo.

Is this a legal lottery? Best regards

Answer 1

No, this is not real. I used to get these all the time. If you email them back, they will eventually ask you to send a small fee of like $100-200. Then they stop contact and you dont get any money. Dont fall for it.

Answer 2

Jimmy Walker huh?  Well DYN-O-MITE!!!!!

Answer 3

Of course, it CAN&#039;T BE TRUE. You receive an unsolicited email, which states that you have won a major prize in an international lottery. Supposedly, your email address was collected online and attached to a random number that was subsequently entered in a draw for the lottery. In order to claim your prize, you are instructed to contact the official &quot;agent&quot; in charge of your case. You are also advised to keep the win confidential for &quot;security reasons&quot;. This part of the scam is basically a random phishing expedition. If you respond in any way to the email, the scammers will send further messages or even contact you by phone in an attempt to draw you deeper into the scam.

You may be asked to provide banking details, a large amount of personal information, and copies of your driver&#039;s license and passport. Ostensibly, these requests are to prove your identity and facilitate the transfer of your winnings. However, if you comply with these requests, the scammers will have enough information to steal your identity.

Sooner or later, the scammers will request some sort of advance fee supposedly to cover administration, legal or delivery costs. At its core, this scam is just a reworking of the Nigerian loan fraud, in which scammers also eventually ask for upfront fees to facilitate the &quot;deal&quot;. Like Nigerian scams, victims who do actually pay the requested fees will probably find that they receive continuing payment demands to cover &quot;unexpected expenses&quot;. The requests for money will go on until the victim realizes what is happening or has no further money to send.

In some cases, the scammers give victims the option of opening an account at a particular bank as an alternative to paying upfront fees. However, this &quot;bank&quot; which is completely bogus, will insist on an initial deposit of $3000 as a requirement for opening the account. The fake bank will have a legitimate looking website to reinforce the scam. In other cases, the victim is given the option of travelling to an overseas destination and paying a cash fee to facilitate the release of the funds. However, any &quot;winnings&quot; released to the victim will be counterfeit and therefore worthless.

The details of the lottery scams vary regularly with regard to the name of the lottery itself, the country of origin, the sponsoring organization, the amount of the &quot;prize&quot; and other particulars. The scammers try to add a patina of legitimacy to their claims by mentioning real financial institutions, government departments or well-known companies. They may also provide links to slick looking, but fraudulent websites that are designed to back up information included in the scam emails. If the scammers are successful in establishing a dialogue with a potential victim, they may provide &quot;proof&quot; such as a scanned image of a supposed government official&#039;s ID and even photographs of the &quot;winnings&quot; in cash.

Complete list of SCAM e-mail addresses.

http://www.419baiter.com/_scam_emails/sc...

Answer 4

The only thing you are going to &quot;win&quot; in believing this will be your  

utter dejection from lossing all your money, if you believe in this CON!!!!!!

Answer 5

Sorry friend but there is no Microsoft, Yahoo or other e-mail lottery, it&#039;s a scam do not answer do not give personal information.The following sites give more information

http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeri...

http://www.thescambaiter.com/forum/showt...

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/email-lottery...

.Also If you go to the following site you will get some info on ID theft www.identity-theft.org.uk the iinternet is safe enough if you are careful but please answer nothing that you are doubtful about.Good Luck and be careful

Answer 6

IT&#039;S A SCAM!!  Jimmy Walker, the liquor??  Just like that bum on the street telling the cops that his name is Jack Daniels.

Answer 7

I do believe that is a fraud...(I think if it were yahoo staff they would at least have a yahoo email acct.!)  if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!!

Answer 8

This is a common mail scam. I recieve mails of this kind every week. Its often different kinds of lottery winnings or people who wants go give me a lot of money for some reason. The mails are often sent from Nigeria. Of course its not true, and you should newer reply.

Answer 9

This is a SCAM. Check out the below link for confirmation of various email scams hitting the internet and how to report them :

http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/lo...

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/or...

Unscrupulous thieves have sent you this email and they are trying to part you from your hard earned cash. They will often ask you to call a premium rate number and keep you holding on whilst you rack up a huge phone bill. They are then paid a large proportion of this phone bill. They may ask you to divulge personal information about yourself or ask for your bank or credit card details. Do not divulge any such information under any circumstances. It is surprising how many innocent victims have been duped by these types of emails. Just remember the thieves who send them are very clever and extremely convincing. I suggest you delete the email and send it into cyberspace, hopefully along with the thieving scumbags who send them.

Check out these sites for further information :

http://www.scambusters.com

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/