Surely I haven't won the lottery, but where's the scam?

I created a fake gmail account and emailed the address you posted. I got back something that very much looks like it will turn into advanced fee fraud.. One of the Hallmarks I've seen is the spelling out all the dollar amounts in numerals, as well as words. i.e.

On behalf of the Management and Staffs of WORLD LOTTO MOBILE PROMO, We officially congratulate you as the beneficiary of the cash prize of €780,000.00 (Seven Hundred And Eighty Thousand Euros). My names are David Hoffman,

It goes on, trying to invent fake details to establish legitimacy, and continually mentioning large amounts of money in an attempt to get you hooked.

This promotion is approved by the British/USA Gaming Board and licensed by the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR). This promo is the 1st of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public about WORLD LOTTO MOBILE PROMO. Your Mobile Number attached to a reference, won you €780,000.00 (Seven Hundred And Eighty Thousand Euros) cash prize and your check will be issued in your name provided.

The MO is generally always the same. Get the mark convinced they've won some large amount of money, but you juuust need this little amount of money to pay some fee associated with winning the money.

If you wanted to be certain you could likely just email back and forth with this guy, preferably from a fake email address. Some people do this as a form of entertainment.


The scam is this: They randomly try phone numbers (no personal address in the message), then try to get the matching Name and Address from the owner.

They likely build up a verified database for phones and matching people.

Do not respond.


Having the mobile phone number associated with an email address is likely enough to take over a large variety of accounts online using a sim swap scam, especially if combined with knowledge of your name and physical address.

That's probably worst case.

Best case is name/address/email/phone would be a valuable commodity to sell in bulk along with similar information of many others for various nefarious purposes ranging from spamming to phishing to full-on identity theft attempts.

Tags:

Phishing

Scam