Competition and lottery scams have been around a long time. There has been lots of publicity yet still many people fall for the scams making it worthwhile for the perpetrators. Following you will find a copy of an email that I received recently and my view of it.

Dear Price Winner,

We wish to congratulate you over your email success in our computer
balloting held on 1st June, 2007. This is a Millennium Scientific
Computer Game in which email addresses were used. It is a promotional
program aimed at encouraging internet users; therefore you do not need
to buy ticket to enter for it. You have been approved f or the star
prize of 1,000,000.00 Euro (One Million Euro Only)

To claim your winning prize you are to contact the appointed agent as
soon as possible for the immediate release of your winnings:

Please contact our European Agent:
Mr Rudd Van Bochem
euromillionbelgium2@yahoo.fr

(1) Ref No: EMES/WIN/007/05/10/MB
(2) Batch No: EULO/2707/444/908/07
(3) Ticket No: 01-1974
(4) Lucky No: 10-23-44-72-80
(5) Serial No: MUOTI/82536

You must contact the appointed agent with your Full Names, Contact
Telephone Numbers (Home, Office and Mobile Number and also Fax Number)
via email to process the immediate payment of your prize. The Validity
period of the winnings is for 30 working days hence you are expected
to make your claims immediately.
Once again congratulations!!!

CONGRATULATIONS!
To avoid mix up of numbers and names of any kind, we request that you
keep the entire details of your award strictly from public notice until
the process of transferring your claims has been completed, and your funds
remitted to your account.

Best Regards,
Mrs.Adline Haack
(Group Coordinator)

I immediately did a Google search and found as expected that Mr Rudd Van Hochem was well documented on the Internet. What normally happens with the advance fee fraud type of scam is that once they have hooked you in they ask in a follow up email for a fee to courier your winnings. BS! it’s a fee to line their pockets.

The biggest clue to it being a fraud is the use of a free yahoo email address rather than an official company email address. Also if you had genuinely won a prize they wouldn’t be asking you to keep quiet about it. Heck a genuine company would rather have lots of publicity.

If you are tempted to check it out and still tempted to go ahead when they ask for courier fees you could always test them by either sending them a payment link for the money via your online account, or as suggested on one site ask them for an up front partial payment and offer to sign a legal contract promising to pay them double the fee they are asking once you receive the balance.

If you have come across this or any other scams please warn others. You may add to this article by commenting on it.

For more information check out
www.data-wales.co.uk/nigerian_lottery.htm
www.419baiter.com/_scam_emails/419_emails_11-05_6.html

There are lots of sites dedicated to exposing scams, these are just 2 of them.