Scamalot - Have to Won?

SCAMALOT - 'WE DO NOT RUN LOTTERIES!'

(Answer: probably not!)

A lot of Lottery Scams use well-known companies and Organizations in their payload, but in most cases, these organzations do not and never have been in the business of running Lotteries. In fact, if they did, you can be sure that you would have to pay them to enter or at the very least, signup for it .

(Country and State laws are extremely complex when Gaming/Gambling/Lotteries are involved and large companies could easily break laws if 'random' email accounts were picked as winners, without knowledge of the owner's location.)


Validate your Lottery Winnings Now with the Scamalot Lottery Verification Service

The Scamalot Lottery/Lotto Validation Service is a tool which uses data from Scamdex and intended to educate people about Unsolicited Scam Lotteries that announce winnings by email.

Microsoft Says:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/fraud/phishing/msname.aspx

You have not won the 'Microsoft Lottery'
Microsoft customers are often targets of a scam that uses e-mail messages to falsely promise money. Victims receive messages claiming: "You have won The Microsoft Lottery!" There is no Microsoft Lottery. Delete the message.
If you have lost money to this scam, report it. You can also send the police report to Microsoft and we will use it to help law enforcement catch the criminals who send out these e-mails.
For more information, see Report Microsoft lottery fraud. To help protect yourself from these e-mail hoaxes, you can use the same general guidance that you use to protect yourself from phishing scams to help protect yourself from these e-mail hoaxes.

Yahoo Says:

http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/yahoomail/abuse/abuse-63.html

Is there a Yahoo! Lottery? Does Yahoo! Mail ever offer cash prizes?
Last Updated: July 26, 2010

No. There is no Yahoo! Lottery, and we would never send you information about a contest you never entered. That’s the definition of unsolicited: you never asked for it. The message probably also displays two other hallmarks of fraud emails: it appears to be official (with company logos, even links), and it demands urgent action “to claim your prize”, or something similar.

If you’ve received a message like “Final Notification: Yahoo! Mail Winner!” or “Your Email Address Has Won $XX million”, it’s a scam. Don’t reply to the email, don’t click on any links in it, and never divulge any personal information. Instead, click Spam.

Yahoo! Mail will never request personal information in an unsolicited email.

If you get an email that looks like it’s from Yahoo! but tells you you’re the winner of a Yahoo! Lottery or other contest – and it asks you to email personal information to claim a cash prize or reward – click Spam to dispose of it. You can also report this suspicious email by going to our Abuse Form and file a complaint.

Toyota Says:

http://www.toyota.com/help/privacy.html

There have been noticeable increases in the number of suspicious e-mails claiming that the e-mail recipient has won a Toyota lottery or other promotion. Sometimes the e-mail claims that the recipient has won a new Toyota Prius. In order to claim the prize, the e-mail asks that personal information (i.e., Full Name, Address, Nationality, Age, Gender, Occupation, Phone/Fax, and/or Country of Residence) be sent to a Hotmail or Yahoo e-mail address. Samples of these hoax e-mails can be found at this Web site.

Google Says:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-steer-clear-of-money-scams.htmlhttp://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=9110

Google is not running a lottery, and we have not picked your email address to win millions of dollars. Don't give out your bank account details via email in anticipation of a big jackpot.

and....

Google lottery
Users have told us about a common email scam in which they're told they've won a 'Google lottery' or other award. Sorry -- there's no Google lottery.

Lottery/Lotto by Email

The vast majority of lottery winning notifications received by email are scams.

No amount of official looking logos, reference numbers of certificates can disguise the fact that these lotteries are complete fraud.  

The goal of Lottery Scams is to make the victim spend money to receive the full winnings. No bona fide lottery will ever ask you to pay anything to collect winnings.

There has never been an 'Email Lottery' where an email address is randomly picked to win a large prize. This is always a scam.

Large organizations such as Yahoo, Microsoft, Toyota, Google etc. are not in the lottery business, and if they ever do hold a sweepstake, they will always make sure that they have an official entry form completed by the entrant..


♦ Scamalot is a Free service from Scamdex to educate and inform the general public about Lottery Scams. It is not intended as a service to check Lottery tickets for valid, bona fide services. |♦| Please refer to the 'Legitimate Lottery Websites' page if you need to check lottery tickets that you have actually bought tickets for. |♦| Contact Webmaster for all questions about this website. |♦| Visit Scamdex.com to learn about the other types of Internet Scanms. |♦| Copyright (c) 2010, Scamdex.com. All Rights Reserved.